BATTLE-hardened Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed repeated Russian attempts to kill him as nothing worse than a Covid attack.
The Lionheart leader said Ukrainian intelligence had foiled at least “five or six” plots to kill him.
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President Zelenski dismissed the assassination attempts against him as nothing worse than the CovidCredit: Charity Day attack
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Ukraine’s president met with The Sun’s Jerome Starkey at his headquarters in Kyiv Credit: Dan Charity
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Zelensky has admitted that he has lost track of all attempts to kill him since the Russian invasion of UkraineCredit: The Sun/Dan Charity
In an exclusive interview with the world, the president also said that Ukraine’s will to defeat Vladimir Putin’s Russia remains strong – and “morally, there is no stopping”.
He said his people were tired of “constant airstrikes”, tired of shelling, tired of destroying homes and killing their loved ones.
But he added: “If you ask them, are you ready to hand over our lands to Russia? Are you ready to talk to the Russians about how to end this?
Are you ready to compromise, personally, with Putin and are you tired of it? They will tell you that we are not tired. We are ready to go on.”
Speaking about attempts to oust him, Mr Zelenski said the first plot had caused panic – like the first outbreak of Covid. But after that they weren’t so bad.
Speaking to The Sun at his headquarters in Kiev, Mr Zelensky admitted he had lost track of all attempts to kill him since Russia launched a full-scale invasion on February 24 last year.
The president said: “The first one is very interesting, when it’s the first time, and then it’s the same as Covid.
“First of all, people don’t know what to do with it and it looks very scary.
“And then after that, it’s just intelligence that shared with you the details that another group came to Ukraine to [attempt] this one.”
Russian special forces parachuted into Kiev to kill him on the first day of Putin’s invasion last year.
Mr. Zelenski’s bodyguards closed his office with improvised barricades and pieces of plywood.
His closest associates were given rifles and bulletproof vests. One said the office was like a “madhouse”.
But when British and American officials offered to fly the president out of the capital amid fears it could fall within hours, he responded with the iconic line: “I need ammunition, not transport.”
Later, as battles raged around Kiev, Zelensky stepped outside the compound to take a defiant selfie video that rallied Ukraine’s resistance by proving he was still in the capital.
Almost two years later, Zelensky said Russia still “very much wants” to oust him from power.
She even knows the codename of their latest mission to overthrow him, and her deadline is the end of the year.
The leader said: “The name of the operation is Maidan 3. The intention is to change the president. That’s goodbye. Maybe not by killing. I mean it changes. They will use all the instruments they have.
“So that’s the idea, until the end of the year. They even named the operation. But you see we can live with that.”
Mr Zelenski has ruled out holding an election due next year, insisting it is illegal under the state of emergency, impossible because of the war and would divide the country when people are focused on fighting Russia.
In August, Ukraine’s intelligence service — the SBU — said it had foiled a plot to kill Mr. Zelensky in an airstrike on the southern city of Mykolaiv.
The SBU said it had arrested a woman accused of passing on details of his visit to Russia.
One of Mr. Zelenski’s aides said that at least a dozen attempts had been made to kill him in the first few weeks of the war.
But when the Sun asked exactly how many conspiracies he had survived, he admitted: “I really don’t know.”
And he refused to say whether Ukraine carried out its own killings in response.
Scores of pro-Russian collaborators have been killed or injured by car bombs and booby traps believed to be the work of Ukrainian special forces and partisans.
Zelensky said: “I cannot talk to you about the special operations of the Ukrainian intelligence service or the secret service or some special forces.
“There are some moments we don’t discuss.
“Not only within Russia, there are things we don’t discuss in our temporarily occupied territories.”
When asked if Ukraine would risk killing the despot Putin if the opportunity arose, Zelensky said: “It is a war, and Ukraine has every right to defend our country.”
We went through multiple layers of airport-style security – we even handed over our pens – to meet Mr Zelensky in his office.
Many of the windows were blocked with sandbags, and a series of long, high-ceilinged corridors were kept dark for safety, his aides said.
Wearing his trademark tracksuit with Ukraine’s trident symbol, Zelensky admitted that his country’s comeback this year has not gone as he had hoped.
The troops in the great counter-offensive advanced only ten miles in five months.
He acknowledged that the lack of progress has discouraged some allies who doubt whether Ukraine can drive out Russian forces.
And he admitted: “We need more successful results on the battlefield.” But he denied his superior general’s claims that the war had reached a stalemate.
He said: “There is no stagnation in morality. We are at our house. The Russians are on our land. Therefore, there is no stoppage in this.
“As far as heaven is concerned, there is no downtime. The Russians have more power in this.
“And really, how do you move forward when you can’t control the sky?”
The US Congress has also blocked £48bn aid plans amid Republican claims that the war in Ukraine could become an “eternal war”.
But Zelenskiy promised to fight and insisted that the war “is not a movie”.
And he said the lack of progress on land was balanced by successes in the Black Sea, which he said was part of a counter-offensive.
A series of missile and drone attacks on Russian warships forced Putin to pull his Black Sea fleet eastward, allowing Ukraine to open a grain export corridor that spans the sea’s western coast.
Zelensky said: “We really destroyed part of the Russian fleet.
“We succeeded. We moved them. They don’t have such a total impact on the Black Sea region.”
He admitted that people were tired of war, but said that there was no appetite to seek peace.
He added: “We do not believe that Putin, nor Russia, we do not believe that they want to end the war. They want to kill us. We want justice too.
“So we are not talking about peace at any price.
“We are talking about just peace because it is very important when we talk about fatigue where it comes from.
“Is it hard on the battlefield? That. But making friends or sitting at the diplomatic table with Russia now? Not!”
To watch The Sun’s full interview with Zelenski, click here.
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When asked by The Sun how many conspiracies he had survived, Zelensky admitted: ‘I really don’t know’ Credit: Dan Charity
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When asked if Ukraine would risk killing the despot Putin, he said: ‘It’s a war and Ukraine has every right to defend our country’ Credit: Getty
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Defense editor Jerome Starkey met with Zelensky in KievCredit: The Sun/Dan Charity
THANKS TO OUR TEAMS
Zelensky with the News Corp & Fox Corp team
Jerome Starkey
PRESIDENT Zelensky thanked journalists for their courage after inviting Lachlan Murdoch, chief executive of Fox Corp and chairman of News Corp, to visit Ukraine.
Mr Murdoch brought along a reporter from each company – Benjamin Hall of Fox News and Jerome Starkey, defense editor at The Sun.
In a press release, Mr. Zelensky “thanked the representatives of the media group for comprehensive coverage of Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression and for talking about Russian crimes despite the risks to themselves.”
Last March, a group of Fox News reporters came under Russian fire in Horenka, outside Kyiv. Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian fixer Oleksandra Kuvshynova were killed.
Briton Benjamin Hall was seriously wounded, he lost part of his leg on one side and his foot on the other side, and was left with limited function of his hand and one eye.
President Zelenski awarded him the Order of Merit III. degree for his “outstanding personal contribution to the strengthening of interstate cooperation, support for the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine”.
It was his first visit to Ukraine since he was tragically killed.
The president thanked Mr. Murdoch for his visit and “stressed that it is a very important signal of support at a time when the world’s attention is clouded by other events.”
Jerome, the award-winning defense editor of The Sun magazine, has been reporting from the Ukrainian front since the war began.
Mr. Zelensky said: “All this time journalists, cameramen, editors, photographers, drivers were on the front line.
“Thanks to journalists from many countries, we now have such support in the world.”
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