Photo: Volodymyr Zelensky / Telegram
An assassination attempt targeting Khartiia Corps commander Ihor Obolenskyi was thwarted, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced after speaking with the military commander.
“I spoke with Khartiia commander Ihor Obolenskyi. There was an attempt on his life today. The attacker and an accomplice have been detained, and the necessary investigative procedures are underway,” Zelenskyy said.
The president added that he had received a briefing from acting Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) chief Oleksandr Poklad and vowed that Ukraine would respond to what he described as “an attack against Ukraine and one of its military commanders.”
Ihor Obolenskyi commands the 2nd Corps of the National Guard's Khartiia formation. In July 2026, he was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine.
Obolenskyi began serving in Ukraine's Armed Forces in 2014 with an artillery brigade and the Omega special unit. A year later, he became commander of the 1st Battalion of the National Guard's 4th Operational Brigade. He fought in the battles for Kramatorsk and Sloviansk before leaving military service in 2019 to return to the private sector.
Following Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, he led the Khartiia volunteer territorial defense unit, which later became the 13th Operational Brigade of the National Guard. He was appointed brigade commander in 2023. The unit initially fought in the Serebryanskyi Forest in Luhansk region before being redeployed to defend positions in the Kharkiv sector.
The announcement comes after several recent cases in which Ukrainian authorities said they had disrupted alleged Russian-backed assassination plots targeting senior military and intelligence officials.
