Russia's security chiefs have demanded, and reportedly won, an end to the Kremlin's unwritten ban on killing Volodymyr Zelensky and the top command of Ukraine's General Staff, according to pro-Kremlin outlets citing senior sources inside Moscow's security establishment.
The claim surfaced Saturday in Bloknot, drawing on the Telegram channel "Akademiya," linked to veterans of the Alpha counter-terrorism unit, and the war correspondents' channel "50 Shades of Kalashnikov." Within hours it was picked up by the Moscow tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets.
According to those sources, the demand came at a late-night meeting Putin held with his Security Council on Thursday, Nov. 12, straight after his two-hour session with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, whose Kremlin visit we covered Thursday. Besides the council's permanent members, the room reportedly held the Russian negotiators just back from the Abu Dhabi talks, among them Vladimir Medinsky and Yuri Ushakov, plus officials from the Foreign and Defense Ministries.
The trigger, per the reports, was Ukraine's drone campaign against the Leningrad region and its Baltic export hub at Ust-Luga. Kyiv hit the port again overnight on Nov. 11, when Leningrad Governor Alexander Drozdenko said 150 drones were shot down and several more set the port area on fire, injuring three workers.
The security officials' case, as Bloknot's sources tell it, is that passive defense has hit a dead end: the Leningrad region alone has reportedly spent 24 billion rubles (about $300 million) on air defense, there isn't enough money to cover the whole country, and Russia's own strikes on Ukrainian bridges and power plants have not stopped the attacks on Russian refineries. Fighting "an endless swarm of penny drones" (translated) is pointless, one participant reportedly argued, and the answer is to go after the people who give the orders.
They also reportedly told the meeting that no deal with Kyiv is possible under its current leadership, and floated clearing the intelligence services and the air force to use heavy hypersonic weapons on the bunkers and motorcades of Ukraine's leaders and commanders.
The taboo dates to the war's first weeks. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in February 2023 that he had asked Putin early in the invasion whether he planned to kill Zelensky, and that Putin answered, "I won't kill Zelenskyy." Bennett said he then called Zelensky to tell him: "100% he won't kill you."
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the same Security Council, broke ranks in May 2023, calling for Zelensky's "physical elimination" after the alleged drone strike on the Kremlin: "After today's terrorist attack, we have no other options."
The leak lands days after Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Abu Dhabi, where the talks produced a large-scale prisoner exchange, as we reported. Moscow's team there included Dmitry Minayev, head of the FSB's counterintelligence operations department, whom Ukrainian sources accuse of being behind a failed attempt to kill Kyrylo Budanov, now Zelensky's chief of staff and a member of Kyiv's delegation at the same table, Meduza reported.
It also comes as Putin prepares to sit down with Trump and Xi Jinping on Nov. 19 at a trilateral summit the White House confirmed Saturday, where, as we reported, nuclear arms are on the agenda and Ukraine is not. Zelensky, meanwhile, says Washington has floated trading the Donbas for NATO membership.
Moskovsky Komsomolets noted that Zelensky has spent most of the past month in Europe, outside Ukraine.