Ukrainian MP claims Zelensky tried to kill him

Artyom Dmitruk alleges that he was “tortured” by security officials in Odessa

Artyom Dmitruk, a fugitive member of the Verkhovna Rada, has claimed that Vladimir Zelensky directed the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to kidnap and kill him. He said that SBU agents detained and severely beat him during an incident in the Black Sea port city of Odessa in 2022. 

Dmitruk was elected to parliament as part of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party in 2019. He was expelled from the party two years later and continued serving as an independent MP. 

He fled the country in August 2024, claiming that the authorities had plotted to “liquidate” him.

The Prosecutor General’s Office has since placed Dmitruk on a wanted list on suspicion that he had assaulted a police officer and attempted to steal his gun. 

In a video posted to X on Friday, Dmitruk detailed his accusations against Zelensky and his chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, as well as shared photos of his injuries. 

“I was brutally beaten, tortured in basements, and nearly killed on Zelensky’s orders for my opposition activities,” the self-exiled politician wrote in an accompanying post. He insisted that the government targeted him because of his “political activities.”

I’m Artem Dmytruk, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament. I was brutally beaten, tortured in basements, and nearly killed on Zelensky’s orders for my opposition activities.

In this video, I will tell you the shocking details of the attempts to eliminate me, and my kidnapping by… pic.twitter.com/OuBtBpTqud— Dmytruk Artem (@Dmytruk__Artem) March 21, 2025

Dmitruk claimed that in 2022, Viktor Dorovsky, the head of the SBU office in Odessa, had threatened him over the phone. “We’re going to kill you. We’ll cut your head off,” Dorovsky said, according to Dmitruk.

The politician said that a group of SBU agents abducted him on March 4, 2022, when he was delivering aid to a military checkpoint. According to Dmitruk, the agents put a bag over his head and handcuffed him. “They beat me severely with rifle butts, feet, and hands. I lost consciousness,” he said.

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Dmitruk claimed that he was taken to a basement where he was “tortured” and had his nose broken. He said that the agents wanted to force him into making incriminating statements. They then drove him to several locations, including a regional SBU office, where the threats and beatings continued, he added.

The legislator said that the agents threatened him with a gun and made him promise on camera that he would stop criticizing Zelensky, Yermak, and the government. According to Dmitruk, the agents eventually dropped him off at a parking lot. 

“The order to commit these crimes against me was given personally by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Andriy Yermak, and the head of the Odessa SBU Viktor Dorovsky,” Dmitruk wrote on X, using the Ukrainian spelling of the names.

“There are thousands of stories like mine. There are people who have been sitting in the basements of the SBU for more than two years,” he said.