Edited by: TJVNews.com
It would appear that the life of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to be under threat. Recently, he resumed delivering daily video messages from his office in Kyiv but since the Russian invasion of his country began on February 24th, he has been going from one location to another.
At the start of the Russian war on Ukraine, Zelensky told President Biden that adversarial forces wished to eliminate him. It was then that Biden offered him safe passage out of the country, to which Zelensky responded that he did not “need a ride” but rather he needed American military support as the conflict continued to intensify.
According to a recent report in the WSJ, the British government said that “Russian mercenary company Wagner Group is being used by Russia to try to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.”
The group of hired soldiers was “reportedly tasked” with killing Zelensky, the British government said, as it announced sanctions against Wagner Group. It didn’t provide evidence or further details, as was reported by the WSJ.
The WSJ report indicated that the Wagner Group sprung up during Russia’s covert interventions in eastern Ukraine in 2014, where the Kremlin worked with armed groups funded by politically connected Russian businessmen.
According to European officials who spoke to the WSJ, the Wagner mercenary group was financed in part by multimillion-dollar catering and construction contracts for the Russian armed forces awarded to companies linked with Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former restaurateur.
A representative of Prigozhin called into question the existence of Wagner Group and said questions about the U.K.’s claim represented “a severe psychosis of Western media,” without commenting on the claim itself. The company couldn’t be reached for comment, according to the WSJ.
While the Kremlin has in the past denied any formal connections with the Wagner Group, the group has already been sanctioned by the European Union, which accuses it of being a proxy force for Russia’s Defense Ministry, as was reported by the WSJ.
Over the last several weeks a multitude of reports have been circulating about the safety of Zelensky and a number of reports of attempts on his life.
Prigozhin has been subjected to sanctions by the U.K., EU and the U.S., according to the WSJ report. The U.K. has also sanctioned his mother and daughter.
Wagner Group arrived in Syria shortly after Russia entered the conflict on behalf of the Assad regime and conducted support operations such as seizing oil and gas fields and securing other government infrastructure, such as airports, as was reported by the WSJ.
