On February 26, 2020 - two days after Vladimir ordered the - Russian Spetsnaz units hatched a plan to hunt down and assassinate President Volodymyr and other senior officials.

The plot was long in the making.

At least one of the units - said to be made up of personnel from Russia's near-mythical 'Zaslon' unit - was already deeply embedded within before the invasion, disguised as civilians and Ukrainian soldiers.

A further 400 Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group were reported to have arrived in the city by late February 2022, while Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov had also been ordered to send his own forces to eliminate Ukrainian leadership.

Other Spetsnaz troops parachuted into regions around the Ukrainian capital, and gun battles broke out on the streets of the city, moving closer to the presidential palace that had hurriedly been turned into a fortress in anticipation of the invasion.

The exact details of what happened over the days that followed are foggy, as is the nature of special operations, but what is known is that Ukraine's own Special Operations Forces (SOF) units sprang into action as Kyiv came under attack.

This photograph taken on Feb.

27, 2022 shows a Russian Armoured personnel carrier burning next to unidentified soldier's body during fight with the Ukrainian armed forces in Kharkiv

On March 2, they ambushed and destroyed a Russian convoy carrying elite Chechen fighters under the National Guard of Russia, killing several - reportedly including the unit's commander - General Magomed Tushayev, although this has been disputed.

Ultimately, Ukraine's forces successfully repelled the attempt on the presidential palace and, a month later, Russian forces pulled back entirely from Kyiv.

Zelensky and his family - who refused offers from Britain and the US to be evacuated, opting to stay in Kyiv - were not captured or killed, and he has gone on to become a vital wartime leader for his embattled country.

But there's a high chance that the outcome would have been vastly different had Ukraine's special forces failed, and the Russian assassins prevailed.

Since then, the two countries' Spetsnaz units have been heavily involved in the on-going 14-month conflict, but in vastly different ways.

Here, as Ukraine prepares to launch its next counteroffensive against Russia, MailOnline looks at how the paths of their respective Special Operations Forces diverged from the initial clash in the capital...

Ukraine Special Operations Forces (SOF) vs Russian Spetsnaz

Both Ukrainian and Russian commando units share their roots in the Soviet Union.

Known as Spetsnaz, which historically referred to the Soviet Union's Spetsnaz GRU, the units made up the covert operations branch of the military intelligence service and other security services before the union broke up.

Because Spetsnaz is a Russian word, it typically refers to Russia's special forces, but with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, other post-soviet states also inherited their special forces from the now-defunct Soviet security agencies.

As is the case with other military hardware such as tanks, fighter jets and aircraft, Russian and Ukrainian Spetsnaz have also been known to use much of the same equipment - such as various models of AK-74s and Glock sidearms.

However, the influx of western weaponry into the Ukrainian military - particularly over the last two years, while Russia has advanced its weaponry from the Soviet era - has meant their equipment has diverged.

Differences in how Ukraine and Russian special forces operate have also emerged over the course of the on-going conflict.

Ukraine's highly-trained elite units - modelled on western special forces such as Britain's SAS - are limited in number, and so have been deployed in a more conventional and precise way.

Pictured: Top-line details on Ukraine's Alpha Team (left) - a special forces unit within the Security Service of Ukraine - and Ukraine's Special Operations Forces (SOF) (right)

Pictured: Top-line details on Russia's Special Operations Forces (SOF) (left) and the Wagner mercenary group (right)

This has seen them working behind enemy lines to disrupt Russian war efforts, destroy key targets, and organise resistance movements in occupied territories.

Videos of Ukraine's forces on the battlefield have shown them using drones (either to drop munitions or guide missiles to their targets) and weapons such as the hand-held Javelin missile launcher to destroy high value targets.

Other footage from the Bakhmut battleground has shown Ukrainian snipers using thermal imaging to pick off advancing Russian troops hell-bent on seizing the city.

In Russia's case, many of the units classed by Moscow as 'special forces' are often only defined by their superior equipment (and in some cases not even that).

That being said, Russia does boast true special forces units of their own.

Known as Russia's Special Operations Forces (SOF), they are independent from the Russian army.

While information around their activities in Ukraine since the 2022 invasion remains murky, they are known to have been involved in missions related to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and during the Syrian Civil War.

However, Russia threw many of its best forces into its brazen attempt to capture Kyiv, resulting in heavy casualties.

Its doomed assault on Antonov Airport in the first weeks, for example, was deemed a massive failure by Russia's so called 'elite' units.

Alpha Group 

Slightly more is known about the activities of Ukrainian special operations since Russian forces illegally crossed the border on February 24, 2022.

There are several military units within Ukraine's own Special Operations Forces, with three being involved in land warfare: The 3rd Special Purpose Regiment, the 8th Special Purpose Regiment and the 140th Special Operations Forces Centre.

The 140th is considered the most elite among them, with the unit in 2019 becoming certified as a special ops unit that can be involved in the NATO Response Force, the first from a non-NATO-member state.

Meanwhile, the Security Service of Ukraine - Ukraine's law enforcement authority and main intelligence and security agency - also has its own special forces unit known as the 'Alpha Group' which was integral to the defence of Kyiv.

The Alpha Group in particular has been visible at key points of the conflict.

Pictured: Two Alpha Group personnel are seen during training exercises (file photo)

It is understood that the ambush on the Chechen convoy was carried out by the unit, meaning its soldiers were engaged in fighting from the very first days of the war. 

The Ukrainian side claimed to have destroyed 56 tanks in the convoy and to have killed hundreds of Chechen fighters in the Battle of Hostomel.

In addition to the ambush, the unit was reported to have played a key role in repelling a 40-mile convoy advancing on Kyiv. 

The world watched in horror as satellite images showed hundreds - if not thousands - of Russian armoured vehicles rolled towards the capital, waiting for the seemingly inevitable mass siege and fall of Ukraine's capital city.

But then the convoy stalled, and reports from the frontlines brought news of sabotage missions being carried out by a combination of artillery strikes, drones, mines and Ukrainian commandos.

Alpha Group has been linked to a number of ambushes in the effort to stop the convoy, reportedly targeting vehicles at the front and the rear of the massive armoured column in order to halt the progress of the other vehicles.

Videos in the opening phases of the war showed artillery strikes bombarding Russian tanks, but also javelin missiles - fired by hand-held launchers - striking and blowing up Moscow's heavy armour.

Soldiers armed with the western anti-tank weapons were able to sneak up on Russian armour, fire their deadly missiles with pinpoint accuracy, and slip away into the dark. 

Russian troops in the column struggled for food and fuel as the supply line was disrupted, while the constant fear of attack made sleep difficult.

As a result, morale among the Russian soldiers in the column fell.

The stalled column became emblematic of Russia's early failures in relying on slow-moving soviet-era tactics. By contrast, Ukraine's more mobile special units equipped with modern tech - such as Alpha Group - wreaked havoc on the Russian army.

After a month of being bogged down in thick mud and making little to no progress into the capital, the convoy was forced to pull back, along with all Russian forces in the Kyiv region, marking an embarrassing defeat for Vladimir Putin.

Pictured: A group of soldiers from Ukraine's Alpha Group pose in the summer of 2022, after liberating Kupiansk during the Kharkiv counteroffensive

Pictured: Alpha Group soldiers pose with a 

Other Alpha Group fighters were also engaged in the doomed defence of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city just 20 miles from the Russian border. 

The city was lost within days on account of it being so close to Russia, and a brutal Russian occupation gripped the city.

But soon after Russian forces pulled back from Kyiv, Ukraine launched a lightning double-pronged counterattack in the north and south of the country, and Kharkiv was later liberated from Putin's occupying forces.

In the north, Russia ceded thousands of miles of territory as Kyiv's forces pushed forward, led by Alpha Group fighters and other special forces units.

The elite unit spearheaded Ukraine's efforts to liberate north-east regions of Ukraine, and were pictured by road signs for towns such as Kupiansk - surprising many commentators at how deep they were inside Russian-controlled territory.

But it was Russian territory no-longer, and thanks to their efforts, the north-eastern town and many others in the region were rid of the Russian occupiers.

Ukraine SOF 

While the exact operational details of missions carried out by Ukraine's special forces are unlikely to become public any time soon, if ever, the fingerprints of elite units have been all over suspicious and dramatic attacks since the war began.

Some such attacks have reached deep over the frontlines into Russian-seized territory, and even Russia itself, prompting speculation of special forces involvement.

One example was a huge blast in October 2022 that ripped a hole in the Kerch Bridge, the huge crossing linking Russia to annexed Crimea.

Members of Ukrainian special forces engage in zeroing their weapons prior to a mission in the region of Bakhmut, Ukraine, April 6, 2023