5 years since Shefir was shot in the Chorneche Forest
On September 22, 2021, the car of Serhiy Shefir, First Assistant to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was shot at in the Kyiv region. At least 18 bullets were fired at the car; the driver was wounded, but Shefir himself was unharmed. Five years have passed, but the assassination attempt has yet to be publicly resolved: the perpetrators remain unidentified, no one has been charged, and investigators have made almost no comments on the case.
18 Bullets and an Assailant in a Woodland Area
On the morning of September 22, Shefir and his driver left the Ivankovychi area and headed toward Kyiv. On the road between Khodosivka and Lisnyky, their Audi A8L came under automatic gunfire from a forest strip.
According to law enforcement officials, 18 bullets struck the car. Most of the bullets struck the driver’s side. Shefir himself was unharmed, while the driver sustained several leg injuries but managed to drive the car out of the line of fire and reach a parking lot near a supermarket.
About two dozen 7.62×39 mm shell casings were found at the scene of the shooting. According to preliminary data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the attacker fired from a position that allowed him to spot the car in advance and prepare for the attack. Experts also examined broken branches that may have been left behind after the shooter set up his position.
From the very beginning, law enforcement officials ruled out the possibility that the incident was staged. Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova stated that the nature of the damage to the car, the trajectories of the bullets, and the driver’s injuries indicate a genuine attack.
Initial Theories: From Pressure on the Government to Foreign Intelligence Services
In the first hours after the attack, the Ministry of Internal Affairs identified three main lines of inquiry that investigators were pursuing.
These included a possible link between the assassination attempt and Shefir’s government activities, an attempt to pressure the country’s top leadership, and a possible destabilization of the political situation, particularly involving foreign intelligence services.
Later, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova mentioned more than ten theories, two of which the investigation considered the most likely. She did not publicly disclose their specific details at that time.
The Office of the President almost immediately linked the attack to the political situation and the government’s fight against the oligarchs. Shefir himself believed that the attack could have been a way to send a message to Zelenskyy and intimidate the country’s top leadership. At the same time, these were merely theories and assessments, not a motive established by the investigation.
Separately, law enforcement officials were investigating a possible Russian connection. Two years after the assassination attempt, National Police Chief Ivan Vyhovskyi confirmed that a Russian connection remained among the theories, but declined to disclose details due to the confidentiality of the investigation.
The Search in the Forest and the Weapon That Was Never Found
Immediately after the attack, the Kyiv region was effectively combed through by a large number of personnel. The police, the National Guard, and the State Emergency Service searched over 430 hectares of forest, checked roads, bodies of water, and possible escape routes for the attacker. Even divers were brought in to assist with the search.
However, the weapon used to fire at the car was not found.
As of the tenth day of the investigation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that, after searching 430 hectares of forest, the assault rifle had not been found.
Subsequently, the investigation focused on another lead—the origin of the ammunition.
Hungarian Cartridges and a Hundred Searches
One of the most concrete leads was the shell casings. Experts determined that the rounds used in the assassination attempt were manufactured in Hungary in 1989.
In November 2021, the Office of the Prosecutor General reported approximately 100 searches. Law enforcement officers investigated individuals who had previously fired hunting weapons with ammunition similar to that used in the assassination attempt. Separate searches were conducted at gun shops and at the homes of individuals involved in the sale of ammunition.
This line of investigation became significantly more promising after information regarding the origin of shipments of such cartridges appeared in court rulings.
According to Glavkom, Ukrainian law enforcement officials, through the German branch of Europol, were determining how much Hungarian-manufactured ammunition had been imported into Ukraine. Specifically, this concerned shipments from 2012 and 2013. The investigation also looked into their sale through the “Safari” chain of stores. In December 2021, law enforcement officials conducted a search of the home of an individual involved in the supply and distribution of this ammunition.
However, this line of investigation did not yield any publicly known results.
The most surprising discovery came two years later
Perhaps one of the most intriguing details of the case only came to light after court rulings were declassified.
In early September 2023—almost two years after the assassination attempt—law enforcement officers found a fishing bag approximately 3.3 kilometers from the scene of the shooting.
Inside were a Kalashnikov assault rifle, two magazines, and ammunition.
Whether this weapon is connected to the attack on Shefir is not established in the publicly available materials. Moreover, the mere fact that the assault rifle was found two years after the crime does not automatically link it to the assassination attempt. At that time, Ukraine had already been in a state of full-scale war for over a year and a half, so the weapon’s origin could have been entirely different.
In other words, what matters here is not the mere presence of the assault rifle, but the fact that even two years later, the investigation continued to follow up on new physical and operational leads.
Another mystery—the Ford Transit
Another strange episode has emerged in the court documents.
On the day of the assassination attempt and the day before, law enforcement officers documented a Ford Transit whose license plates were registered to a KTM 790 Duke motorcycle.
Why this vehicle caught the investigators’ attention and what exactly its connection is to the Shefir case remains unclear from the publicly available materials.
Journalists from “Glavkom” contacted the National Police and the Office of the Prosecutor General with questions about this vehicle. In response, law enforcement officials stated only that the crime remains unsolved and that disclosing further details could hinder the investigation.
Investigators were looking for at least two perpetrators
In August 2023, National Police Chief Ivan Vygivsky made one of the most significant statements of the entire investigation.
According to him, law enforcement officials had determined that there were at least two perpetrators involved in the assassination attempt.
However, this did not mean that the police had identified them. Vyhovsky stated that no one had been formally charged. According to him, investigators even looked into several possible perpetrators who, after the assassination attempt, had been imprisoned for other crimes.
At that time, the head of the National Police emphasized that the investigation is proceeding on the assumption that this was not an attempt to intimidate Shefir, but an attempt on his life.
The FBI has been brought in, but no results have been made public
Another important detail is international assistance.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that representatives of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation had been brought in to assist with the investigation. And in February 2024, the deputy head of the National Police—head of the Main Investigative Directorate, Maksym Tsutsikiridze—stated that there had been some progress in the case involving international partners, including the FBI. However, he did not specify what exactly these results were.
This is an important point: international cooperation confirms that the case was not simply left to languish. But at the same time, no explanation has ever been provided publicly regarding what specific results this cooperation has yielded.
What Has Changed in Five Years
The publicly documented picture appears paradoxical.
The investigation established many details of the attack itself: the number of shots fired, the caliber of the weapons, the shooter’s position, the origin of the ammunition, and the possible number of perpetrators. Large-scale searches were conducted, a vast amount of information was examined, and international partners were involved.
But there are no key answers.
Who exactly fired the shots?
Who organized the assassination attempt?
What was the ultimate motive?
Was the assassination attempt linked to the activities of Shefir, Zelenskyy, the government’s struggle against the oligarchs, or Russia?
The investigation has not publicly answered these questions.
The most recent clearly documented public statement from the Office of the Prosecutor General that we were able to find is dated April 2024. At that time, in response to a request from “Suspilne,” the Office of the Prosecutor General stated that no one had been notified of suspicion in the case and that the pretrial investigation was ongoing. It was being conducted by the Main Investigative Department of the National Police under the procedural supervision of prosecutors from the Office of the Prosecutor General.
However, two weeks before this response, Zelenskyy dismissed Shefir from his position as first assistant to the president. This, however, does not in itself mean that the investigation has been concluded or suspended.
Why the Story Has Virtually Disappeared
After the start of the full-scale invasion, the Shefir case practically disappeared from the news agenda.
This is particularly striking given how high-profile the attack in September 2021 was. At the time, it was described as an assassination attempt on one of the president’s closest associates, and Zelenskyy himself stated that the response would be strong.
However, over time, public statements were reduced mostly to brief mentions that the investigation was ongoing.
Even after Shefir’s dismissal from Bankova Street in March 2024, the case saw no new public developments.
As a result, five years later, we find ourselves in an unusual situation: the assassination attempt has not resulted in a solved criminal case, yet it has not legally disappeared either. The investigation continued to exist, and select materials from it appeared from time to time in the court registry; however, the main mystery remained the same as it was on the morning of September 22, 2021.
Who was standing in the wooded area—and who ordered him to shoot?
As a reminder, former presidential aide Serhiy Shefir transferred most of his assets to his wife following the “envelope” scandal.
Shefir also withdrew from the list of owners of “Kvartal UA” LLC, following in Mindič’s footsteps.
After the assassination attempt, the “Servant of the People” party explained why Shefir was not using security detail.
