Ukraine has acknowledged that one of its top aims in the conflict is to murder Vladimir Putin.
Sergei Shoigu, the Russian minister of defence, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and Valery Gerasimov are all on the hit list, according to intelligence chief Vadym Skibitsky.
However, Putin “stayed holed up,” according to the second-in-command of Ukraine’s military intelligence, making it challenging to assassinate him.
Even while the Russian president “is now beginning to stick his head out,” he continued, spies can never be certain “it’s really him” because of the long-rumored employment of doppelgängers at public occasions.
Skibitsky said Putin ‘notices that we’re getting ever closer to him’ – a claim backed by new US intelligence that Ukraine was likely behind last month’s audacious drone attack on the Kremlin.
He also said the tyrant is ‘afraid of being killed by his own people’.
Putin sits at the top of the list ‘because he co-ordinates and decides what happens, Sibitsky went on: ‘Ultimately, however, everyone will have to answer for their actions.
‘Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu planned the attack and now they cannot turn back.’
Prominent Russian commanders are also on the list.
Prigozhin, whose troops have been accused of a catalogue of appalling war crimes, was relaxed about his inclusion.
‘Of course, Prigozhin, as one of the important actors in this war, must be eliminated. This is 100 per cent true, so they are doing absolutely the right steps,’ he said.
‘I always say that the enemy must be treated with respect. Of course, I respect their decision as well.’
Skibitsky claimed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov was also on the wanted list even though he had ‘realised that strategically the Putin regime has already lost’.
‘General Armageddon’ Sergei Surovikin was also named.
‘We are at war and these are our enemies,’ he said. ‘If an important figure produces and finances weapons for them, then its elimination would save the lives of many civilians.
‘And then he gets wiped out. According to international conventions, it is then a legitimate target.’
Russia has already accused Ukraine of seeking to assassinate Putin with a strike on the Kremlin on May 3.
One of two drones hit the Senate building where his official apartment, which he seldom uses, is located.
Initially there were claims that the attack was a stunt by the secret services.
But a report in The New York Times said US officials are now less inclined to see it as some kind of false flag operation.
US spy agencies suggest it was orchestrated by Ukrainian military intelligence, although it was unclear if President Volodymyr Zelensky or his officials were aware of it.
Confidence it was directly authorised by the Ukrainian government was ‘low’, the report