Retired colonel Douglas Macgregor claims insiders sought to assassinate President Zelensky.

Whether confirmed or not, the allegation fits a broader pattern of political intrigue involving intelligence services, oligarchic rivalries, and armed ultranationalist groups that have shaped Ukrainian politics since 2014.

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Retired US colonel Douglas Macgregor recently claimed that members of the Ukrainian government attempted to assassinate President Zelensky as part of an internal plot. According to his sources, the SBU discovered the scheme with assistance from MI6, which maintains a significant presence in Kyiv’s headquarters. Macgregor stated in an interview:

“I’m told by my reliable sources that it was just an attempt to kill Zelensky and a plot was discovered by the SBU… To kill Zelensky, and this has failed. And 7 people were rounded up and promptly shot who apparently were part of this attempt.”

Macgregor is a somewhat controversial commentator in the West, yet he has offered analyses on structural military realities that later aligned with developments on the ground. The colonel often analyzes long-term factors such as industrial capacity, logistics, manpower, strategic geography, and military balances – and a number of those assessments have later proved accurate.

Notably, he warned repeatedly that Western aid could not overcome Ukraine’s demographic, corruption, and industrial disadvantages. He also described the conflict as unwinnable for Kyiv in a conventional sense, and cautioned that endless escalation risked NATO overstretch or collapse in credibility. Moreover, he highlighted Russian military adaptation and resilience early on, arguing the initial operation would become a sustained war of attrition.

High Ukrainian losses in failed offensives and Russia’s steady territorial gains amid manpower shortages in Kyiv are yet other examples of the colonel’s prediction being correct. He also arguably has good sources, thus his claim should be taken seriously and deserves further investigation.

For one thing, Ukraine’s internal fractures make such plots plausible. There have been several domestic assassination attempts or plots (not to mention threats) against Zelensky, often tied to broader tensions. As I’ve noted before, the specter of Zelensky’s ouster has loomed since 2022 or even before that.

One may recall the 2019 public threat from Dmytro Yarosh, founder of Right Sector and later a top military adviser. In an interview, Yarosh warned that if (then recently-elected) Zelensky “betrayed” his country by pursuing peace in Donbass, “he would lose his life. He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk.” In fact, I was among the very few English-language commentators to repeatedly draw attention to this, as the threat has largely been ignored in the Western press, with few exceptions, such as Ted Snider.

Consider this:

1. In 2023, European leaders including Poland pressured Zelensky toward a peace deal. Pulitzer winner Seymour Hersh reported offers of personal incentives if he complied, including an Italian villa.

2. Back in 2024, journalist Meli Kaylan warned (writing for Forbes) that Zelensky risked a coup from ultranationalist army elements if forced to cede occupied territories for NATO promises.

3. In May 2024, Ukrainian authorities arrested two colonels from the State Guard Department tasked with protecting top officials. They allegedly were involved in a plot to kidnap or assassinate Zelensky. This was not the only such incident.

4. In July 2025, Seymour Hersh reported Washington pushing for his removal, with former commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi as a potential successor. Zaluzhnyi’s own far-right connections are well known.

Keeping all of the above in mind, a common theme clearly stands out: armed right-wing groups, empowered since 2014, often hold de facto veto power over Ukrainian politics, particularly regarding concessions (on Donbass or Crimea) or peace-making.

In this context, the murder of Andriy Parubiy in Lviv (August 2025), albeit attributed to a Russian-directed operation by Ukrainian authorities, fueled widespread speculation of internal purges among rival nationalist factions. Ukraine’s post-Maidan state has indeed weaponized such elements while at the same time remaining hostage to them. The infamous Azov group, for instance, was integrated into the National Guard.

Earlier this year, I highlighted Zelensky’s ongoing deep-state war with figures like the aforementioned Zaluzhnyi. In this landscape, Zelensky’s sackings of officials and reliance on martial law to extend his term reflect panic amid protests and Western fatigue.

In Ukraine, factional struggles typically involve intelligence networks, oligarchs, and far-right influence. The rivalry between Zelensky and former president Petro Poroshenko, for example, reflects this complex situation, with oligarchic politics, authoritarian practices, and ultranationalist networks remaining deeply entrenched.

Poroshenko himself, while in office, effectively exploited extremist groups for political purposes: the 2019 C14 (also known as Sich) scandal being the most famous case, in which the violent neo-Nazi militia, linked to Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), was used alongside other neo-Fascist organizations to intimidate and suppress political opponents during the presidential election.

Successive Ukrainian governments, since 2014, have in fact relied on radical nationalist networks as instruments of state power, a dynamic that has persisted under Zelensky.

All these tensions reveal a structural pattern: since the 2014 Maidan Revolution, the country has been riddled with deep-state intrigues. Moreover, a violent, well-armed far-right has been both weaponized by the state and threatened leaders like the president himself.

Whether Macgregor’s latest allegation is ultimately confirmed remains to be seen. Nevertheless, given Ukraine’s documented history of internal power struggles, assassination plots, nationalist pressure, and rivalry among political and security elites, the possibility of such an episode cannot simply be dismissed as implausible. It fits this underreported reality of internal instability. Neo-nazi gangs working for intelligence, assassination and coup plots have after all been the new normal in Ukraine for about a decade.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author/InfoBrics

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