Why Zelenskyy dismissed his guard chief after a foiled plot
A look back at the removal of the state guards head on 9 May 2024, two days after Ukraine's security service announced the detention of two protection unit colonels.
What did it mean when Ukraine's president removed the head of his own protection service? On 9 May 2024, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Serhiy Rud, head of the state guards, after allegations that two members of the guards were involved in an assassination plot against him.
The dismissal followed an announcement two days earlier. On 7 May 2024, the Security Service of Ukraine said it had detained two colonels from a government protection unit. According to the service, both had been recruited by Russia's Federal Security Service and were planning to assassinate Zelenskyy and other top Ukrainian officials.
An inside threat
The alleged plot was notable for where it was said to originate: not outside the president's security perimeter but within the unit responsible for protecting senior officials. The dismissal of the guards' chief within 48 hours of the detentions pointed to the seriousness with which the allegations were treated.
Part of a wider pattern
The episode fits a pattern later described by Ukrainian officials and news sources: 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. The events of 7 and 9 May 2024 belong to that sequence.
Implications
The sequence showed the security service acting against personnel inside a state protection body, and the president acting swiftly on the leadership of that body. It placed the question of counter-intelligence vetting inside government protection structures in public view, at a time when Russia's war against Ukraine was continuing.
