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Ukraine’s military intelligence said on Monday it had thwarted an alleged coup, the latest of a long series of plots to overthrow the government and foment unrest amid Moscow’s war on its neighbor, CNN reported.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) explained on messaging service Telegram that it spotted a “group” of plotters who planned to hold a rally in Kyiv on June 30 before storming the parliament and removing military and political leaders.
The plan was allegedly to cause a riot after the rally, and benefit from the ensuing chaos.
“In this way, they hoped to undermine the socio-political situation inside Ukraine, which would have played into Russia’s hands,” the SBU added.
Moscow and its proxies have tried to destabilize Ukraine’s leadership with a series of plotted coups even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy himself has been the target of over a dozen assassination attempts.
But invading the heavily guarded parliament building would be no easy task, begging the question of how developed the latest plot was, the New York Times wrote.
Nonetheless, the SBU announced it seized weapons and electronic devices with “evidence of criminal action.”
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office said it identified four suspects, two of whom remained in custody. It added that the person leading the coup attempt was “a co-founder of an NGO known for its anti-Ukrainian actions.”
It was unclear whether the organizers had direct ties to Russia.
On the day of the alleged planned coup, Moscow launched missiles at the Ukrainian capital, the Kyiv Independent reported, after killing seven people in strikes targeting the country’s south on Saturday.
Russia has been slowly gaining ground in Ukraine, while Kyiv has suffered from a lack of troops and delays in Western support.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Hungarian Prime Minister and Kremlin ally Viktor Orbán paid a surprise visit to Kyiv, his first since the beginning of the war.
Orbán, who took over the rotating presidency of the European Union this week, said he proposed a cease-fire deal to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, RFE/RL reported. Zelenskyy declined to comment on the idea.
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