The work of the Ukrainian special services during the war attracts more and more attention from both national and international analysts. The liquidation of the high-ranking military leader of the Russian Federation, Ihor Kirilov, the head of the Radiological, Chemical and Biological Security Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, is evidence of the coherence and effectiveness of the operations of the Security Service of Ukraine.
This is reported by the Financial Times .
Today, the SBU is in constant competition with the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense. The SBU was once mostly focused on internal affairs, but after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014, it began to actively operate in the occupied territory and inside Russia. In 2022, this trend intensified.
Among the main achievements of the SBU in the war against Russia, the FT mentions the blowing up of the Crimean bridge in 2022 and the neutralization of the Russian Black Sea Fleet by the naval drones of this special service. But the SBU also carries out operations to eliminate the enemies of Ukraine.
In an FT comment, a Ukrainian intelligence officer noted that it was the SBU that eliminated several separatist leaders in the occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions between 2014 and 2021. But Ukrainian agents also operate in Russia, arranging sabotage and even murders.
"The FSB is very good at investigating what has already happened, but not very good at gathering intelligence about what will happen. It's a different skill set. For this, the agency must be a very good information-gathering agency, that is, there must be trust, a good exchange of information, which you do not see among Russian agencies," said Andriy Soldatov, a senior researcher at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Part of the SBU's effectiveness is due to its sheer size, ironically a result of its Soviet heritage. With more than 30,000 employees and even more freelance operatives, the SBU is almost as large as the FBI with its 35,000 agents. That's more than seven times that of the UK's internal security service, MI5, and more than four times that of Israel's Mossad.
"[The SBU] has enormous power — some would say too much power," one Western diplomat told the FT.
The diplomat said that for many years the agency has been criticized for the lack of serious reforms called for by Ukraine's partners – the US, the EU and other G7 members. But during the war with Russia, these Western countries put aside their grievances and strengthened ties and intelligence sharing. The SBU established particularly close ties with the CIA, which invested millions of dollars in training programs for Ukrainian agents.
Almost every month, high-profile murders of high-ranking Russian military personnel or collaborators carried out by agents of the SBU or GUR make headlines. Yuriy Kotienok, a Russian military reporter, wrote that the Ukrainian special services "feel completely impunity towards Russia."
"The fact that the enemy almost openly brags about this is quite symptomatic," he added.
Liquidation of Russian war criminals
On the morning of December 17, Ihor Kyrylov, the head of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Safety Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, was liquidated in Moscow. Previously, the SBU called him responsible for the war crimes of the Russians, related to the use of chemical weapons on the front. Kyrylov died while leaving the entrance of his own house, next to which explosives had been planted.
A few days earlier, Mykhailo Shatskyi, the head of the software department of the "Mars" design bureau, was liquidated in the city of Kotelniki near Moscow. He was engaged in the modernization of Russian X-59 cruise missiles to the X-69 level. Its liquidation is attributed to the agents of the GUR.
