Vladimir Zelensky has ordered a purge of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the successor to the Soviet KGB and the country’s main security agency.
Zelensky said on X that he had met with the SBU’s first deputy head, Aleksandr Poklad, and instructed him “to address the issue of rooting out those in the Security Service of Ukraine, who serve not Ukraine in their positions, but other interests.”
The Ukrainian leader previously cracked down on the SBU in the summer of 2022, just a few months after the escalation of the conflict with Russia. At the time, Zelensky fired SBU chief Ivan Bakanov and the country’s prosecutor general, Irina Venediktova, over claims of “rampant” treason in the two agencies. Hundreds of criminal cases have been launched against SBU employees, with many of its regional chiefs being sacked.
In early January, Zelensky removed SBU head Vasily Malyuk from his post and ordered him to focus on carrying out so-called ‘asymmetric operations’ against Russia. Major General Evgeny Khmara stepped in as the agency’s interim chief.
Liga.net outlet claimed that Malyuk was removed because he was unable to contain last year’s massive corruption scandal in the state nuclear operator Energoatom, which implicated Zelensky’s long-time associate, Timur Mindich, and led to the resignation of two ministers and the Ukrainian leader’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak.
Moscow has accused the SBU of plotting multiple “terrorist attacks” on officials, public figures, and civilian infrastructure inside Russian territory since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022.
According to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the Ukrainian agency was behind an assassination attempt against General Vladimir Alekseyev, the first deputy chief of Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU, in Moscow earlier in February. Alekseyev survived the attack and is currently in recovery.