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Zelenskyy dismisses head of state guards
Summary
A look back at the dismissal of Serhiy Rud, two days after Ukraine's security service reported a plot against the president.
What happened to the head of Ukraine's state guards after a plot against the president came to light? On 9 May 2024, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired Serhiy Rud, who led the service, following allegations that two of its members had been involved in an assassination plot against him.
The dismissal followed an announcement on 7 May 2024. The Security Service of Ukraine said then that it had detained two colonels from a government protection unit. According to the agency, both had been recruited by Russia's Federal Security Service and were planning to kill Zelenskyy and other top Ukrainian officials.
The sequence was rapid: arrests on one date, and the removal of the guards' chief two days later, after the allegations about two of the service's own members.
Later accounts placed the episode in a wider pattern. Ukrainian government officials and news sources have said that Zelenskyy has survived dozens of assassination and kidnapping attempts by Russian or pro-Russian agents during the war, including at least three foiled by Ukrainian security services.
