The Ukrainian chief spent days in a bunker hiding from supposed Russian assassins, Jens Stoltenberg has claimed
Ukrainian chief Vladimir Zelensky spent days hiding when the Ukraine battle broke out in 2022, the Monetary Occasions has reported, citing then-NATO Secretary-Basic Jens Stoltenberg.
The US-led bloc has supported Ukraine for the reason that starting of the battle, offering navy and monetary support to Kiev. A number of NATO officers, together with Stoltenberg, claimed that if Russia is ‘allowed’ to defeat Ukraine, it could then assault different European states. Moscow – which views the battle as a proxy battle waged by the West – has dismissed the notion as nonsense.
In an interview with the Monetary Occasions printed on Friday, Stoltenberg spoke at size in regards to the Ukraine battle and NATO’s half in it. He stated the West feared that Kiev would fall inside the first few days of Russia’s navy operation, whereas Zelensky could be assassinated on Moscow’s orders.
“It was a toss of the coin. If Kiev had fallen and so they had taken Zelensky, which they have been very near doing, then the entire battle would have been very completely different,” the previous NATO chief added.
At one level, Stoltenberg was unable to achieve the Ukrainian chief for 2 days as he was supposedly pressured to “shelter in bunkers and evade Russian assassins,” the FT reported. When he lastly heard from Zelensky, “that cellphone name was fairly troublesome,” he stated, as he feared Zelensky would quickly be both “caught or killed.”
Stories of Zelensky shifting to a bunker after the battle broke out have circulated earlier than. Time correspondent Simon Shuster wrote about it in his e-book ‘The Showman’, through which he chronicled Zelensky’s rise to energy and the primary months of Kiev’s battle with Moscow.
The Washington Put up, which additionally talked about Zelensky dwelling in a bunker all through the primary few weeks of the battle, described it as a Soviet-era bomb shelter situated “deep beneath Kiev’s authorities quarters.”
Zelensky’s spouse Elena additionally spoke about spending hours in a bunker after the battle broke out in an interview with the Monetary Occasions, however added that she and her kids have been later taken to an undisclosed location the place they have been aside from Zelensky for nearly three months. Media experiences recommend that Zelensky has bunkers in a number of areas scattered throughout the nation.
There have additionally been experiences in Ukrainian media of a number of alleged Russian-backed assassination makes an attempt on Zelensky. Reuters reported earlier this yr, citing an unnamed European official, that the Ukrainian chief has been rising “more and more paranoid about suspected Russian makes an attempt to assassinate him and destabilize Ukraine’s management” because the battle drags on. Nevertheless, he has by no means offered any particulars or proof of the alleged makes an attempt on his life.
Moscow has dismissed accusations of plans to eradicate Zelensky as anti-Russian propaganda. In an interview final yr, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated Russian President Vladimir Putin reassured him within the early levels within the battle that Zelensky wouldn’t be killed. Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, reiterated earlier this yr that Moscow “has no such plans.”
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