Anti-war subversives in Russian intelligence tipped off Ukrainian officials.
By David Hellerman, World Israel News
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has survived three Russian-backed assassination attempts in the past week.
According to the Times of London, all three attempts were thwarted because anti-war subversives in Russian intelligence alerted Ukrainian officials.
The assassination attempts were confirmed by Ukraine’s Secretary of National Security and Defense.
The Times reported that one of the attempts was made by the so-called “Wagner Group,” which has been described as private Russian paramilitary group. They had a list of 24 Ukrainian officials to target, including the 17 members of the Ukrainian cabinet and the mayor of Kyiv,
An assassination carried out by the Wagner Group would have given Putin room to deny any involvement.
The Wagner Group is reportedly owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian billionaire and close confidante of Russian President Vladimir Putin who was one of several oligarchs sanctioned by the U.S. after Russia’s invasion.
Prigozhin and the Internet Research Agency he funded were indicted by a U.S. grand jury for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by using fake and stolen identities on social media to manipulate American public opinion.
As many as 4,000 members of the Wagner Group began infiltrating Ukraine in January.
Two separate Chechen death squads were also sent after Zelensky, Fox News reported on Tuesday.
Both were eliminated by Ukrainian forces.
According to Fox, “The Chechens are part of a Russian national guard unit and are well known for fighting insurgencies” and have been used to hunt down terrorists in Syria.