Putin ‘survived assassination attempt’ two months ago

VLADIMIR PUTIN survived an assassination attempt shortly after his invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv’s top military intelligence official said last night.

Major General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of military intelligence, said the Russian authorities foiled the attack on the president two months ago. “There were attempts to kill Putin,” Mr Budanov, 36, told Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian online newspaper.

“There was an assassination attempt recently by, as they call it, representatives of the Caucasus. This was not in the public domain. A completely failed attempt, but it really did happen about two months ago.”

Major Gen Budanov did not provide any details and it was unclear if he was referring to Russia’s North Caucasus that saw two separatist wars in the 1990s or the South Caucasus, which includes Georgia.

The claims were published as Moscow last night accused Ukrainian nationals of carrying out “terror attacks” on pro-russian officials installed in occupied regions in southern Ukraine.

Authorities in Kherson, one of those territories under Russian control, announced the introduction of the rouble as the official currency alongside the Ukrainian hryvnia.

And as fighting continued to intensify in the eastern Donbas region, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, warned that nearly 100 soldiers could die every day in the battle over his country’s industrial heartlands.

The Kremlin did not respond to the claimed attempt to kill Mr Putin.

On the battlefield, Mr Putin’s forces continue to sustain heavy losses, according to British intelligence, which claimed Russia has lost as many men in the first three months of the Ukraine conflict as the Soviet Union’s nine-year campaign in Afghanistan.

Russian forces have ramped up efforts aimed at seizing control of Severodonetsk, one of the last big cities under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk province.

The city, which had a pre-war population of around 100,000, is expected to become the next major military struggle after the drawn-out battle over Mariupol came to an end last week.

Local officials have warned the city faces a similar fate to Mariupol, which was razed to the ground under constant bombardment by Russia during a two-month siege. Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk, said: “They are wiping Severodonetsk from the face of the Earth.”

Western officials also cast doubt over the apparent assassination attempt on the Russian president.

Mr Putin has maintained his Covid isolation protocols in place to narrow the opportunities of immediate access to him, a source added.

“Was anyone to attempt to do something like that [an assassination attempt] It would be a hugely complex operation,” the official said.

‘There was an assassination attempt recently by, as they call it, representatives of the Caucasus’