The first adviser and friend of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Serguiï Chefir, escaped an assassination attempt with automatic weapons on Wednesday 22 September.

An attack linked, according to the authorities, to the fight against the interests of powerful oligarchs and to which the President of Ukraine has promised a "strong response". 

Unknown people opened fire on Serguiï Chefir's car, near the village of Lisnyky, in the region of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.

The driver was injured and hospitalized, but his life is not in danger.

In total, "18 shots were fired at the car with automatic weapons," said the head of the Kiev regional prosecution, Oleksiï Khomenko, quoted by the Interfax-Ukraine agency. 

Shots were fired at a car carrying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's principal aide in what a senior official called an assassination attempt https://t.co/dfLTrhrG3w pic.twitter.com/6fbg5CN9nm

- Reuters (@Reuters) September 22, 2021

Released unscathed from the attack, Serguiï Chefir appeared at a press conference at the Interior Ministry.

He denounced an attempt to "intimidate".

"I don't think it's going to scare the president," he said.

A "strong response"

Volodymyr Zelensky, who is currently in the United States for the United Nations General Assembly, said he did not know who was behind the assassination attempt.

“Getting a message to me by shooting a friend is an act of cowardice,” he said.

The President of Ukraine also promised to give a "strong response" to this attack and to continue his fight "against crime and against influential financial groups", referring to his promise to fight against the influence of the oligarchs. "This does not affect the path I have chosen with my team: towards change, towards decluttering our economy, towards fighting criminals and big influential financial groups."

"Three main hypotheses" are being studied, said police chief Igor Klymenko.

The trail of an attack linked to the "official functions" of Serguiï Chefir, that of an attempt to "put pressure on the Ukrainian leaders" and that of an "attempt to destabilize" Ukraine. 

In the latter case, a "participation of foreign special services" in the attack was a possibility, he said, probably referring to Russia, Ukraine's geopolitical adversary.

"Shadow oligarchs"

An adviser to the presidency, Mikhaïlo Podoliak, for his part told the Interfax-Ukraine agency that he "clearly associated" the assassination attempt with an "aggressive and bellicose campaign against the policy of the head of state" and his efforts to "reduce the influence of shadow oligarchs" and those aimed at "the destruction of the politico-financial groups that work for our foreign adversaries". 

Volodymyr Zelensky this year announced a campaign to fight against certain oligarchs, extremely wealthy and unscrupulous businessmen accused of exploiting the economy of this former Soviet republic and of buying the votes of the media and the class Politics.

Sergiï Chefir is unofficially in charge of negotiations with the oligarchs, according to the France 24 correspondent in Ukraine.

Several assassination attempts, successful or not, have targeted politicians and journalists in recent years in Ukraine, a country at war since 2014 with pro-Russian separatists and engaged in a serious crisis with Moscow. 

Among the resounding attacks are the murders of former Russian deputy Denis Voronenkov, shot dead in the street in broad daylight in 2017, and that of prominent investigative journalist Pavel Cheremet the previous year, killed in the explosion of his car in Kiev.

With AFP and Reuters

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