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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has survived at least a dozen assassination attempts since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, a book claimed.
In his forthcoming book “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden‘s White House,” author Chris Whipple stated that President Biden instructed CIA Director William Burns to go to Kyiv before the start of the war to inform Zelensky of a Russian assassination plot.
Whipple noted that two plots were thwarted thanks to the U.S. intelligence that Burns shared with Zelensky during the visit.
“The intelligence was so detailed that it would help Zelenskyy’s security forces thwart two separate Russian attempts on his life,” Whipple wrote, according to The Independent, which obtained a copy of the book.
In his book, Whipple also referenced “Ukrainian officials” who said Zelensky survived over 12 separate assassination attempts since February 2022.
In March of last year, The Times of London reported that Zelensky survived at least three attempts on his life by Russian forces since the war began. According to the outlet, mercenaries from the infamous Kremlin-backed Wagner group were responsible for at least two of the attempts.
Meanwhile, Chechen forces were behind an attempt on Zelensky’s life in March on the outskirts of Kyiv. The assassins, however, were taken out before they could reach Zelensky.
At the same time, Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to the Head of the President’s Office, told Ukrainska Pravda that there have been over 12 assassination attempts against Zelensky.
“Our foreign partners are talking about two or three attempts. I believe that there were more than a dozen such attempts,” Podolyak said, as per a translation via Google Translate. “Western intelligence is right to say that the main target for Putin was Mr. Zelensky in terms of attacking the government quarter and trying to kill the country’s key manager.”
Podolyak also noted that Ukraine receives a constant stream of information concerning Russian agents attempting to enter government property.
The news about assassination attempts comes after Zelensky turned down offers from the U.S. to be evacuated from Kyiv in the early days of the war and asked America for ammunition instead of “a ride.”
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