PLOT FOILED
Russia spy arrested in Poland for ‘plotting assassination attempt on Zelensky & scoping out airport used by Ukraine’
A major investigation is underway into the thwarted plan
POLAND has arrested a man on suspicion he was working with Russia to plot the assassination of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Suspect Paweł K has been accused of helping the Kremlin's security services to plan the attack that was foiled by Poland with help from Ukraine.
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Pawel K was detained on Wednesday and charged with "reporting his readiness to act for foreign intelligence".
He could face up to eight years in prison if found guilty.
A joint , led by Polish and Ukrainian law enforcement, found he "established contacts with the Russian Federation directly involved in the war in Ukraine".
A statement said: "His tasks included the collecting and providing of military intelligence for the Russian Federation with information on the security of the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport".
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His intention was "to help Russian special services plan a possible attack" on President Zelensky, it added.
The officials did not specify whether Moscow had actually received Pawel K's offer of intelligence or what the response was.
Polish prosecutors said Ukraine alerted them to their suspicion about the suspect and shared information that led to his arrest.
The investigation is ongoing.
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Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin said: "This case is yet another proof that Russia is a threat not only to Ukraine and Ukrainians but also to the entire free world.
"The Kremlin's criminal regime is constantly trying to undermine European and global security."
I've survived five Putin assassination attempts... it's like Covid, it's get easier every time, says President Zelensky
Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport was a small regional airport, but it has since has become a key hub in the vast operation to supply Western military aid to Ukraine.
Military and cargo aircraft from the US and across Europe regularly fly in and out of the airport to deliver supplies to waiting trucks that make the 62 mile journey to the Ukrainian border.
Wednesday's alleged assassination attempt is certainly not the first to be made against President Zelensky since Russian invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
In fact, the Ukrainian leader survived an alleged attempt on his life while touring the Black Sea port of Odessa just last month.
Zelensky claimed other people died and were injured when a Russian missile struck near his motorcade while he was with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Both delegates were a mere 500 to 800 metres from the strike which killed five people, according to a Ukrainian navy spokesperson.
Just weeks after Vladimir Putin's troops invading enemy territory, it was reported that the Ukrainian military had "destroyed" a Chechen outfit tasked with "eliminating" Zelensky.
A report from in March 2022 stated that Putin had "assigned the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov to do the dirtiest work and personally instructed him during a meeting" the previous month.
The outlet also claimed that the Chechen group were tasked with taking out Ukrainian leaders before they were repelled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Zelensky's presidential adviser, Mikhail Podolyak, previously revealed that the Ukrainian leader had survived more than a dozen attempts in the first two weeks of the war alone.
Podolyak told Pravda there rather than the "two or three" attempts reported in the media, it was in fact "more than a dozen".
"We have a very powerful intelligence and counterintelligence network," he told the outlet two years ago.
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"They monitor it all and all these DRGs [Russian reconnaissance groups] are being eliminated on the way.
"That is, we understand, all the plans and our counterintelligence is working on them."
Previous assassination attempts on Zelensky
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has survived, and been subject to, a number of assassination attempts.
The first of those came just weeks after Russia broke through the border, following reports that Vladimir Putin allegedly instructed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to eliminate Ukrainian leaders.
In early March, Chechen commandos who were sent to assassinate Zelensky were quickly "eliminated" by Ukraine intelligence.
That same month, Russian Private Military Company (PMC) Redut was ordered to infiltrate and eliminate the political leadership and the Ukrainian Secret Service by storming institutions in the Kyiv region.
More than one thousand fighters turned up, yet up to 90% of them were killed as the mission quickly failed.
In August 2023, it was reported that another alleged assassination attempt had been stopped.
Ukraine's security service arrested a woman suspected of gathering information on Zelenskyy's trip to the Mykolaiv region.
Despite conflicting reports on the number of assassination attempts on Zelensky, Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Ukrainian Pravda news outlet "there were more than a dozen attempts".
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