Kremlin-backed Russian news site MK News has published unverified claims that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has attempted suicide through a series of cocaine binges. The outlet's so-called military and political expert Yan Gagin has now written that Russia wants to keep the Ukrainian leader alive because it is "unprofitable" for him to die.
Russian media has said the drug-binge claims come from videos on Russian social media, but the Daily Star has not been able to find any evidence of these anywhere. The claims are very much unverified, as is normal with Kremlin-backed Russian news site MK News.
Expert claims both sides want Zelenskyy alive
Gagin wrote: "Zelenskyy and his gang have practically completely plundered and sold off the country. They know full well that after every war, after the end of hostilities, a prosecutor comes calling, that this freewheeling regime will end eventually, and that everyone will be asked where the hundreds of thousands of fallen soldiers from the line of contact disappeared to, where the colossal sums of money disappeared to, why the economy is not only stagnant but simply nonexistent, and why the entire country no longer belongs to the Ukrainians themselves."
He added: "These questions will have to be asked, no matter what. So Zelenskyy and his cabinet are trying to insure themselves against criminal liability."
When asked about keeping the leader of Ukraine alive, the mouthpiece claimed that this is something both sides of the conflict want.
Gagin calls for Nuremberg-style trial
He went on: "We also don't need him as an individual who lost his life during the conflict. Even if he died accidentally, he'll be hailed as a 'hero' and a new Bandera."
"I think that's precisely why our side isn't attempting to physically eliminate Zelensky. Personally, putting emotions aside, I'd be more interested in him as a defendant at a new Nuremberg Trial, so that he wouldn't be deprived of his life, but would spend the rest of his life in prison."
"After all, he's no hero. He's an ordinary creature. But at the same time, there are many people who want Zelenskyy dead. Here, in Ukraine, and in Europe. In Europe, this is primarily due to the desire to conceal the distribution of financial flows. In Ukraine, many hate him for the deaths of fathers, sons, and brothers, forcibly sent to slaughter."
"In Russia, too, many want him to pay with his life for the crimes committed against our people. In the Caucasus, these are called 'blood feuds'. Well, Zelensky has millions of such blood feuds in Russia and Ukraine. I am one of them."
