Khartiia brigade commander Obolienskyi targeted in assassination attempt, Zelensky says

Khartiia Brigade Commander Ihor Obolienskyi survived an assassination attempt, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on July 31 following a briefing by acting Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) chief Oleksandr Poklad.

"We will definitely respond to this attempted strike against Ukraine and the Ukrainian commander," Zelensky said in a post on X.

The president added that the attacker and his accomplices had been detained and that legal proceedings were underway.

Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing law enforcement sources, that a 69-year-old man suspected of preparing an assassination attempt against Obolienskyi was detained in Kharkiv near a local barbershop.

The man was allegedly recruited by Russian special services who posed as SBU officers and convinced the Kharkiv resident that Obolienskyi was a "traitor." The operatives sent him an AI-generated image showing Obolienskyi standing next to the Kremlin wearing a T-shirt with Russian symbols, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

The suspect approached the brigade commander from behind, but his weapon reportedly malfunctioned at the moment of the attack. A Makarov pistol and ammunition were seized from him during the arrest, the report read.

The detainee also said he had received the weapon from an unidentified person in Kharkiv on the instructions of his handler.

Law enforcement officers are currently working to identify the person who provided the weapon, analyzing surveillance footage, checking for possible accomplices, and determining whether information about the service member's movements was leaked.

A criminal case has been opened, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

Russian intelligence services have repeatedly recruited Ukrainian citizens to carry out assassination attempts against Ukrainian military personnel and other public figures. The attempted attack on Hero of Ukraine Obolienskyi is not the first such case reported this year.

The SBU said on March 13 that it had detained a Ukrainian drone operator recruited by Moscow to assassinate Andrii Biletskyi, commander of the Third Army Corps.

Later that month, law enforcement agencies dismantled a Russian intelligence and sabotage network consisting of 10 individuals who were collecting information on Ukrainian forces and planning contract killings of public figures, including volunteer Serhii Sternenko and Ilya Bogdanov, a fighter with the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said.

Russian special services attempted to assassinate Andrii Yusov, an officer with Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR), at least twice in 2026.

In February, the SBU, in cooperation with Moldovan law enforcement, uncovered a spy network planning assassination attempts against at least five public figures, including Yusov.

A similar case emerged in June, when law enforcement officers detained a former military service member and his intermediary who planned to kill Yusov using an FPV (first-person-view) drone in Kyiv in exchange for a $100,000 payment.