Ukrainian officials claim assassination plot against Zelenskyy foiled

Russian security forces sympathetic to Ukraine, helped the Ukrainian forces to thwart an assassination plot against President Volodymyr Zelensky, a Ukrainian security and defense chief said on Tuesday.

An elite group of Chechen special forces — known as the Kadyrovites — was dispatched by Russia to "eliminate our president" but was "destroyed directly," said Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, according to a Telegram post written on Tuesday by the Center for Strategic Communications.

Danilov said Ukraine had "received information" about the plot against Zelensky from individuals in Russia's Federal Security Services, a successor to the KGB. The supposed informants "do not want to take part in this bloody war," Danilov said.

"And thanks to this, I can say that Kadyrov's elite group was destroyed directly, which came here to eliminate our president," he said.

Danilov's Tuesday announcement is one of the latest victories claimed by Ukrainian authorities, who frequently report they've inflicted heavy casualties on Russian troops trying to advance into Ukraine's major population centers.