Zelensky assassination plot arrest in Poland: Man is held for ‘passing on airport details to Russian security services planning to kill Ukrainian president’

A Polish national has been arrested on suspicion of handing sensitive information to Russia in order to facilitate a possible assassination plot against president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Suspect Paweł K faces up to eight years in prison after he was detained in Poland and charged with ‘reporting his readiness to act for foreign intelligence’.

The man was tasked with ‘collecting… military intelligence… with information on the security of the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport’ in order to ‘help Russian special services plan a possible attack’ on the Ukrainian leader, Polish prosecutors believe.

Polish authorities worked with their counterparts in Ukraine during the investigation, leading to Paweł K’s detention on Wednesday. The investigation is still ongoing.

A number of attempts on the life of President Zelensky have been reported since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, an investigation revealed how Paweł K had ‘declared his readiness to act for the military intelligence’ of Russia and made contacts with citizens ‘directly involved in the war in Ukraine’.

They claimed he became involved in gathering and relaying military intelligence back to Russia, including information on the security of the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport in southeastern Poland.

This was ‘among other things’ intended to help special services plan an attack on Zelensky, the prosecutors allege.

The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine raised suspicions about Paweł K with the Polish Prosecutor’s Office, who conducted an investigation into the suspect.

The ‘Polish side’ emphasised the strong collaboration with Ukraine to foil the alleged plot, sharing information and collating evidence from within and outside of Poland.

The investigation continues to be conducted by the Internal Security Agency under the supervision of the National Prosecutor’s Office.

As early as March 2022, Pravda reported that the Ukrainian military had ‘destroyed’ a Chechen outfit tasked with ‘eliminating’ Zelensky.

Chechnya is a republic within Russia.

‘Putin assigned the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov to do the dirtiest work and personally instructed him during a meeting on February 3, 2022,’ the outlet reported, dated more than two weeks before the invasion.

The Chechen group were tasked with taking out Ukrainian leaders before they were repelled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Pravda claimed.

Mikhail Podolyak, presidential adviser to Zelensky, claimed previously that the Ukrainian leader had survived more than a dozen attempts in the first two weeks of the war alone.

‘Our foreign partners are talking about two or three attempts. I believe that there were more than a dozen such attempts,’ he told Ukrainian Pravda in March 2022.

‘We have a very powerful intelligence and counterintelligence network – 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.’

In March 2023, a group of foreign citizens were arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia, Polish government officials told the BBC.

Polish security services reportedly broke up the spy network accused of installing secret cameras at the Rzeszow-Jasionka airport in order to film transport infrastructure used to deliver aid to Ukraine.

The group allegedly installed dozens of cameras near railway junctions and key transport routes in areas border Ukraine, local radio station RMF FM reported.

Military and cargo aircraft from the US and Europe regularly use the airport in Poland to deliver supplies headed for Ukraine.