According to Ukraine’s chief of defense intelligence, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, Russian President Vladimir Putin survived an assassination attempt two months ago.
Budanov revealed the information in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian online newspaper.
“There was an attempt to assassinate Putin,” Budanov said. “This is non-public information. An absolutely unsuccessful attempt, but it really happened.”
Few details about the attempt have been released, but Pravda said the full transcript of its conversation with Budanov would be revealed soon.
Business Insider suggests taking this report with a grain of salt, as this is not the first time Budanov has released unverified information to the public.
Last week, Budanov reported that Putin’s health was in decline and members of the Kremlin were planning a coup against their leader. Neither claim has been independently verified.
If this report is accurate, it would not be the first time a would-be assassin has made an attempt on the Russian President’s life.
Oliver Stone interviewed President Putin for a documentary called The Putin Interviews in 2017. During the interviews, Putin spoke about various attempts on his life over the years. Putin told Stone he had survived five assassination attempts.
The Russian leader detailed a conversation he once had with Cuban President Fidel Castro about the many attempts on his life.
“Do you know why I’m still alive?” Castro asked him. “Because I was always the one to deal with my security personally. I do my job, and the security officers do theirs, and they are still performing quite successfully.”
Putin reiterated to Stone that he fully trusted his security staff, who åhave protected him since the first recorded assassination attempts in 2000.