Zelenskyy has survived over 12 assassination attempts since start of full-scale invasion

William Burns, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), warned President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about an assassination threat at a secret meeting during his visit to Ukraine before Russia’s invasion.

Source: The Independent

Details: Chris Whipple, author of books about administrations of different US presidents, describes this information in his book The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House. 

William Burns went to Kyiv before the start of the full-scale war in order to inform Zelenskyy of a Russian plan to murder him and "give him [Zelenskyy – ed.] a reality check", as Zelenskyy was publicly dismissive of warnings from US officials. 

Chris Whipple said that Biden tasked the CIA director – a former US Ambassador to Russia – with providing Zelenskyy with "precise details of the Russian plots": "This immediately got Zelenskyy's attention; he was taken aback, sobered by this news". 

It is noted with a reference to 'Ukrainian officials' that Zelenskyy has survived more than 12 separate attempts on his life by Russian forces since the full-scale war began in February 2022.

Whipple said that at least two of those success stories were thanks to US intelligence shared by Burns during that visit to Kyiv: "The intelligence was so detailed that it would help Zelenskyy's security forces thwart two separate Russian attempts on his life."

Background: In March 2022, The Times reported that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had survived at least three assassination attempts since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

At the same time, Mykhailo Podoliak, Advisor to the Head of the President's Office, said on 9 March that there were more than a dozen of such assassination attempts.

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