Survived 'at least five or six' Putin assassination attempts, it's like COVID: Ukrainian president Zelenskyy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that he has lost count of the number of assassination attempts made against him since Russia unleashed a full-scale invasion of the country on 24 February 2022.

“I really don’t know,” Zelenskyy said to The Sun when he was asked to precisely tell how many plots he survived.

Speaking to the UK-based newspaper at his fortified Kyiv headquarters, Zelenskyy recalled that the first plot to kill him was “like the first outbreak of COVID.”

“But after that, they were not so bad,” he said.

“The first one is very interesting, when it is the first time, and after that it is just like COVID,” the Ukrainian president said.

“First of all people don’t know what to do with it and it’s looking very scary,” he added.

“And then after that, it is just intelligence sharing with you detail that one more group came to Ukraine to [attempt] this,” Zelenskyy said.

Russia still ‘wants to very much’ topple Zelenskyy

The Ukrainian president also said almost two years later, Russia still “wants very much” to topple him from power.

He even claimed to know the codename of Russia’s “latest mission” to oust him and its deadline of the end of the year.

“The name of the operation is Maidan 3,” Zelenskyy said.

“It is meant to change the president. It’s bye bye. Maybe it’s not by killing. I mean it’s changing. They will use any instruments they have,” he added.

“So that’s the idea, to the end of the year. They have even named the operation. But you see we can live with it,” the Ukrainian president said.

Zelenskyy recounted the first day of Russia’s invasion in February last year, where Putin’s special forces parachuted into Kyiv “to kill”. The Ukrainian president said his “bodyguards sealed off his office with makeshift barricades and bits of plywood.”

Zelenskyy also said he rejected offers from officials of Britain and the US to evacuate him, saying, “I need ammo, not a ride.”

Elections illegal under martial law

Zelenskyy ruled out holding elections in Ukraine that had been due to take place in 2024, stressing that “it was illegal under martial law, impossible because of the war and would divide the country when people were focused on fighting Russia.”

Zelenskyy also refused to be drawn on whether or not Ukraine had carried out its own assassinations in reply to Russia’s attempts on his life.

“I can’t discuss with you any special operations of Ukrainian intelligence or Secret Service or of some special forces,” he said.

“There are some moments which we are not discussing. Not only inside Russia, there are things we are not discussing on our temporarily occupied territories,” Zelenskyy said.

War with Russia ‘not a movie’

Zelenskky vowed to fight on and insisted that the war with Russia was “not a movie.”

“That’s war, and Ukraine has all the rights to defend our land,” he said.

“We need more successful results on the battlefield,” Zelenskyy said, but denied his top general’s claims that the war had reached a stalemate.

“In the morale, there is no stalemate. We are at our home. Russians are on our land. Therefore there is no stalemate in this. As regards the sky, there is no stalemate. Russians have more power in that. And really, how to move forward when you can’t control the sky?” the president said.