Former Israeli premier Bennett: Vladimir Putin promised not to kill Volodymyr Zelensky

According to former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised at the beginning of the Ukraine war not to kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Bennett told an Israeli journalist that Putin had made this promise at a meeting in Moscow in March last year.

Bennett, then Israeli prime minister, was the first Western leader to visit Putin in Moscow after the war began. Further mediation efforts between Russia and Ukraine followed, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

Bennett published the conversation on his Facebook page on Saturday evening. A leader's life is most precious in conflict, Bennett said. "I knew Zelensky was in danger, he was in a bunker whose location was unknown."

About three to four hours into the conversation, he said, he, therefore, asked the Russian president if he wanted to kill Zelensky. Putin denied this, he said.

Bennett said he asked Putin to give him his word. "He said, 'I won't kill Zelensky'."

After the meeting, he said, he called Zelensky directly while still driving from the Kremlin to the airport. "Listen, I've just come out of a meeting, he's not going to kill you," he had told Zelensky at the time.

Zelensky asked if he was sure, and Bennett replied, "One hundred per cent."

About two hours later, the Ukrainian president recorded a video from his office in which he asserted that he was not afraid for his life.