A top Russian official has said that the U.S. vetoed a Ukrainian plot to attack President Vladimir Putin’s annual Navy Day parade last month.
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said during a broadcast on state TV channel Russia-1 that the U.S. intervened in a plot that would have led to a “new escalation.”
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Ukrainian intelligence was preparing a provocation against Putin during Russia’s Navy Day parade, which he attended on July 28. This plan was stopped after a phone call between Defense Minister Andrei Belousov and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on July 12, Ryabkov said.
“The signal from our military leadership and the minister of defense to our American counterpart must have had an impact,” added Ryabkov.
Russian news outlets, including state-run RT, reported that Ukrainian intelligence services were preparing an assassination attempt on Putin and Belousov at the Navy Day parade in St. Petersburg.
Newsweek couldn’t independently verify the reports and has contacted Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry for comment by email.
The New York Times reported on July 26 that Belousov requested a phone call with Austin about an alleged secret Ukrainian operation that Russia believed had the green light from Washington.
Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said defense officials were unaware of such an operation and were surprised by Belousov’s claims. The publication didn’t elaborate on the details of the alleged plot, but said the U.S. contacted Ukraine after the phone call.
Putin held a notably muted annual parade to mark the Day of the Russian Navy last month. The main parade in Kronstadt was canceled, while a smaller event took place in St. Petersburg on the Neva River.
For the first time, there was also no parade held in the Black Sea or in Novorossiysk “for security reasons,” Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported. Ukraine has targeted the Russian Navy throughout Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, using missiles and drones to hit his prized Black Sea Fleet.
In an interview with U.K. newspaper The Sun in Kyiv last November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country has every right to kill Putin if the opportunity arises, should doing so protect Ukraine and its people.
Zelensky told the newspaper he has lost track of the number of times Moscow has attempted to assassinate him since the war began.
“That’s war, and Ukraine has all the rights to defend our land,” the Ukrainian leader said when asked if Kyiv would take a chance to assassinate Putin should such an opportunity arise.
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