Putin pledged not to murder Zelensky, former Israeli prime minister claims
Ryan King
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Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed that he would not assassinate his Ukraine counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, according to former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
Bennett was one of the few Western-aligned leaders to meet with Putin in the immediate aftermath of the bloody invasion of Ukraine and recounted how Putin gave him his word that he wouldn’t kill Zelensky.
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“I asked ‘what’s with this? Are you planning to kill Zelensky?’ He said ‘I won’t kill Zelensky.’ I then said to him ‘I have to understand that you’re giving me your word that you won’t kill Zelensky.’ He said ‘I’m not going to kill Zelensky,” Bennett recalled in an interview, per the Associated Press.
Following the talk with Putin, Bennett relayed the Russian leader’s remarks to Zelensky. Bennett also claims that Putin dropped his pursuit of Ukraine’s disarmament, while Zelensky committed to not joining NATO.
“‘Listen, I came out of a meeting, he’s not going to kill you.’ He asks, ‘are you sure?’ I said ‘100% he won’t kill you,'” Bennett recounted.
During the early stages of the war, many Western leaders feared that Zelenksy would soon be killed and Kyiv would fall within a matter of days. As the one-year anniversary of the war draws near, Zelensky remains the president of Ukraine and Kyiv is still standing, with Russian forces largely being pushed to the eastern portions of the country amenable to Russia.
CIA Director Bill Burns warned Zelensky of plots to assassinate him before the outbreak of the war, according to a recent book. Zelensky refused pleas for him to flee his country and moved his family to an undisclosed location at the dawn of the war. Since then, he has become an international symbol of resistance to Russian aggression and courted military aid from allies such as the U.S.
Putin has been accused of orchestrating the assassination of many of his domestic political rivals and of lying to foreign leaders in the past, including about the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
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Bennett briefly served as Israel’s prime minister in a rotation agreement with Yair Lapid. He has been prime minister for about six months by the time war broke out. In the time since, his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu roared back to power. Netanyahu has kept the door open to serving as a mediator in the conflict.
Israel long had a friendly working relationship with Russia as many of its citizens derived from there, but Israel is also closely aligned with the United States, which is at odds with Moscow over the war. Russia is believed to be gearing up for a massive winter offensive against its neighbor.