Putin's Generals Push To Scrap Promise Not To Kill Zelensky, Days Before Trump-Xi Summit

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Putin's Generals Push To Scrap Promise Not To Kill Zelensky, Days Before Trump-Xi Summit Russia's security chiefs have demanded, and reportedly won, an end to the Kremlin's…

Russia's security chiefs have demanded, and reportedly won, an end to the Kremlin's unwritten ban on killing Volodymyr Zelensky and the top command of Ukraine's General Staff, according to pro-Kremlin outlets citing senior sources inside Moscow's security establishment.

The claim surfaced Saturday in Bloknot, drawing on the Telegram channel "Akademiya," linked to veterans of the Alpha counter-terrorism unit, and the war correspondents' channel "50 Shades of Kalashnikov." Within hours it was picked up by the Moscow tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets.

According to those sources, the demand came at a late-night meeting Putin held with his Security Council on Thursday, Nov. 12, straight after his two-hour session with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, whose Kremlin visit we covered Thursday. Besides the council's permanent members, the room reportedly held the Russian negotiators just back from the Abu Dhabi talks, among them Vladimir Medinsky and Yuri Ushakov, plus officials from the Foreign and Defense Ministries.

The trigger, per the reports, was Ukraine's drone campaign against the Leningrad region and its Baltic export hub at Ust-Luga. Kyiv hit the port again overnight on Nov. 11, when Leningrad Governor Alexander Drozdenko said 150 drones were shot down and several more set the port area on fire, injuring three workers.

The security officials' case, as Bloknot's sources tell it, is that passive defense has hit a dead end: the Leningrad region alone has reportedly spent 24 billion rubles (about $300 million) on air defense, there isn't enough money to cover the whole country, and Russia's own strikes on Ukrainian bridges and power plants have not stopped the attacks on Russian refineries. Fighting "an endless swarm of penny drones" (translated) is pointless, one participant reportedly argued, and the answer is to go after the people who give the orders.

They also reportedly told the meeting that no deal with Kyiv is possible under its current leadership, and…

The…

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