Should Vladimir Putin come into its sights, Ukraine will not hesitate to pull the trigger. “Putin is target number 1,” said Ukrainian general Vadim Skibitski, who added menacingly: “We are getting closer to that target.”
The second man of the Ukrainian secret service also makes no secret of who else is on the ‘death list’. That is Yevgeny Prigozhin, the cruel boss of the Wagner mercenary army, in second place. “We have been trying to kill him for some time,” Skibitski said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Republica. Also high on the list are Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu and Supreme Commander Valeri Gerasimov.
The spy general’s remarks will have been noted with great concern in Brussels and Washington. They also come at a time when there have been a number of Ukrainian actions on Russian soil that the West is watching with horror, not wanting to see Russia attacked with Western weapons for fear of escalation.
Attack commands
For example, the US secret services now seem convinced that the attack with two drones on the Kremlin is probably the work of Ukraine. The attack is said to have been carried out by Ukrainian commandos who are allowed to operate with great independence in Russia and behind the front lines. According to CNN and the New York Times, this is evidenced by US taped conversations of both Russian and Ukrainian secret services and defense personnel.
The Russians were stunned by the attack and there was much speculation in Ukraine as to which part of the armed forces or secret services was responsible for the attack. This rules out a ‘false flag operation’, in which Russia itself would have sent the drones to launch a revenge campaign against Kiev. That would also be unlikely, because then Russia itself would have made it known that its center of power is not safe.
“The message that the Kremlin is vulnerable and that even Putin is not safe fits into Ukraine’s psychological warfare. The Russians need to get a sense that they too are vulnerable. You see it in all kinds of areas: the attack on ammunition depots or fuel depots in Crimea and within Russia, the failed attempt this week to blow up the spy ship Ivan Khurs with naval drones in the Black Sea and the armed attack on Russian territory near the border with Ukraine being claimed by two Kiev-backed violent Russian groups. It all fits the tactics,” says Patrick Bolder of the The Hague Center for Strategic Studies.
Armor
Where General Skibitsky openly admits to wanting to kill Putin and his generals and denies that Ukraine is responsible for the murders of notorious Russian nationalists, including the blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, the writer Zakhar Prilepin and the activist Darya Dugina (‘because propagandists are not high on our list stand’), it is unclear what President Volodimir Zelensky knows.
According to the American secret services, this was done deliberately. Various military and espionage services are loosely organized so that they can carry out risky operations, including beyond national borders, which the president can later say he knew nothing about, so as not to antagonize his Western friends and especially Joe Biden.
Bolder thinks this image is correct. “There will all be smaller parts that work loosely, have a limited budget and possibly some weapons to carry out this kind of operation. Officially, Zelensky will not want to know anything about that.”
An example of this is the action in the border region of Belgorod, where civilians were startled on Monday by an armed attack from Ukrainian territory. Two radical Russian groups claimed responsibility for the attack: the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVK) and the Legion for Freedom of Russia.
Extremely right
Both groups have been fighting alongside the Ukrainian army against Russia since the Russian invasion and have a mission to overthrow the Putin regime. The Ukrainian army said it had nothing to do with the operation and insisted that both units, which are surrounded by an atmosphere of the far right, acted on their own. Bolder believes little of that. “They are types with ideas that do not go down well in the West, but everything is allowed in war and love, and of course Ukraine keeps a finger on the pulse of such a group.”
Volunteer Corps leader Dennis Nikitin says: “Everything we do across the border is our decision.” But he adds with barely hidden sarcasm to Western journalists that “we do get the encouragement and help we need.” Nikitin gets his equipment, which includes American Humvees, ‘by buying it from international stores’. That is almost literally the text that the Russians used when they denied in 2014 that they had invaded Ukraine with their own material.
Tightrope walking
It’s a tightrope for Zelensky between what the West allows him and what his generals want, but Bolder assumes he has clear red lines. Killing Putin probably falls under the ban, because Zelensky knows that the West values international (war) law. A uniformed general at the front is a permissible target, but a civilian, even a brutal leader like Putin, is not. However, Bolder is not entirely sure. “This is an existential struggle. Zelensky fights for the survival of his country.”