Ukraine's secret services feel that they have complete impunity towards Russia. Apparently, no one has doubted Kiev's role, but the fact that the enemy almost openly boasts about it is quite symptomatic. This was stated by Russian military reporter Yuri Kotenok on the occasion of another successful operation of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
In the Russian capital, Moscow, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian forces for radioactive, chemical and biological protection, was liquidated together with his assistant in front of the entrance to a building, where an explosive device was placed in a scooter parked in front. People familiar with the attack say the SBU was behind the assassination attempt.
The FT is reporting on this powerful Ukrainian agency, which has played a key role in Kiev’s fight against the Russian aggressor – both in Ukraine and on Russian soil.
The assassination marks the latest blow in an escalating shadow war between Kiev and Moscow, waged by their vast and powerful state intelligence agencies, both descendants of the Soviet Union’s spy agencies, with the SBU a direct descendant of the KGB.
Operating behind enemy lines, these agencies have targeted military personnel and politicians, sabotaged energy infrastructure and rail systems, and used hybrid warfare tactics, including cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, to sow chaos within each other’s borders. On the Ukrainian side, the often controversial SBU, which the United States and other allies have long urged Kiev to reform, has been fueled by internal competition with the military intelligence directorate, known as the GUR. It has become what an intelligence officer involved in planning operations called a “liquidator of Russians.”
An SBU official confirmed that his agency was responsible for Kirillov’s death, calling him a “war criminal” who “ordered the use of banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian army.” He warned: “Such an ignominious end awaits all who kill Ukrainians.”
The SBU has been largely focused on domestic affairs, but since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, it has been operating in Kremlin-occupied Ukraine and inside Russia. After Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, it attacked Russia’s Crimean bridgehead and destroyed much of the enemy’s Black Sea fleet with naval drones. Several assassinations of pro-Russian separatist leaders in Moscow-controlled parts of Donbas were also carried out.
The SBU has become a crucial tool for Kiev as it battles Russia on many fronts. Russia is struggling to counter its efforts, said Andrei Soldatov, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “The FSB [Russia’s main security agency] is very good at investigating what has already happened, but it is not very good at gathering intelligence about what is to come. It’s a different skill set,” he said.
The Ukrainian service has found ways to use moles, break into enemy territory, and identify vulnerabilities in Moscow’s intelligence network. Part of the SBU’s effectiveness comes from its sheer size, ironically a result of its Soviet legacy. When Ukraine gained independence in 1991, the SBU inherited many of the KGB’s structures, resources, and responsibilities and did not reduce them.
With more than 30,000 employees and even more unregistered agents, the SBU is almost as large as the FBI with its 35,000 agents. The SBU is more than seven times larger than Britain’s MI5 domestic security service and more than four times larger than the Mossad.
One of the key tasks of the Security Service of Ukraine, especially in times of war, is to counter enemy special services. The position of the security services is clear and unambiguous: any crime of the aggressor must be punished.
In August 2022, the agency planted a bomb in a car belonging to Russian ultranationalist ideologist Alexander Dugin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a supporter of the war in Ukraine. But Dugin was not driving - his daughter Darya Dugina was behind the wheel and was killed on the spot.
The SBU’s work has often been controversial. “The SBU has enormous power – some would say too much power,” a Western diplomat told the FT. The agency has for years proven largely resistant to major reforms, despite calls from Ukraine’s biggest backer, the United States, other G7 members and EU nations. But amid the war with Russia, those Western nations have put aside some complaints and stepped up ties and intelligence-sharing. The agency has developed particularly close ties with the CIA, which has invested millions of dollars in training programs for Ukrainian agents.
The SBU has come a long way since late February 2014, when it was ravaged by former President Viktor Yanukovych after the Maidan revolution. Before fleeing, Yanukovych ordered an attack on the agency, with his agents stealing important state secrets and burning what they could not take out by car and helicopter. The SBU, already struggling with credibility issues, suffered significant defections in the spring and summer of that year, when Russia annexed Crimea and seized control of cities in eastern Ukraine.
Now, however, the SBU is once again a powerful organization fighting the Russian aggressor. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began nearly three years ago, hardly a month has passed without a headline about a Russian official involved in the war effort being eliminated by SBU operatives.
But there are times when credit goes to its sister agency, the Military Intelligence Directorate, known as the GUR. Under the watchful eye of their enigmatic chief, Kirill Budanov, the unit has also conducted covert operations and assassinations far behind enemy lines.
The two agencies compete, each trying to outdo the other by assassinating high-ranking officials or striking larger military targets deeper and deeper into Russia. Sometimes they cooperate.