Maliuk agrees to step down as head of Security Service of Ukraine – UP

Ukrainska Pravda reports that Vasyl Maliuk, Head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), has agreed to submit his resignation.

Source: UP publication "Everyone will be reshuffled. Why Zelenskyy needs a 'reset' of Budanov, Fedorov, Shmyhal, Maliuk and others"

Details: At a meeting with Zelenskyy on Saturday, after a wave of public support from well-known civic figures and military personnel, Maliuk refused to write a resignation letter and transfer to the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine or the National Security and Defence Council.

UP reports that Maliuk justified his position by saying that several operations on the scale of Operation Spiderweb are at their final stage, and abandoning them now would be a crime.

However, he allegedly stated that if there were such a request from Zelenskyy, then the issue should be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) for it to decide.

Zelenskyy was angered by General Maliuk's refusal to write a resignation letter. Communications advisers separately encouraged Zelenskyy by saying that the campaign in support of the general "was organised by the SSU itself". As a result, Zelenskyy threatened that he could remove Maliuk from his post if he did not submit his resignation voluntarily. Parliament did indeed grant Zelenskyy such powers at the beginning of the invasion, specifically regarding officials appointed by the head of state.

Many MPs fear the public fallout of applying such a procedure to Maliuk, whom the majority of society perceives primarily as the creator of naval drones, the mastermind behind the Crimea Bridge explosion or Operation Spiderweb.

In Zelenskyy's team, Maliuk is initially viewed as one of the faces of the attack by Andrii Yermak, the former head of the President's Office, on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, from which the Office of the President is now trying to distance itself. Second, Maliuk is blamed for the fact that the Security Service is engaged behind the scenes in undisguised "commerce", "stripping businesses bare whenever and however it pleases".

Maliuk's own team, on the contrary, believe that the resignation is nothing more than revenge by Yermak, still present in Zelesnkyy's inner circle, for the SSU head's stance during Mindichgate and the searches at Yermak's office and home.

At his briefing on Saturday, Zelenskyy stated very irritably, though without mentioning the SSU head by name, that he would still carry out all the replacements he had planned. According to UP, the Office of the President even began looking for grounds on which it would be formally possible to issue a decree on Maliuk's dismissal.

On Sunday, Maliuk was pressured not only to resign but also to express words of gratitude for it.

Despite massive support from the military, partners and MPs, and despite the extremely slim prospect of dismissal by parliament, Maliuk, according to UP, nevertheless decided that escalating the conflict with the president would mean harming the state. And he agreed to resign. When and how the actual removal from office – which requires a vote by the parliament – will take place will be decided in the near future.

Major General Yevhen Khmara, Head of the Alpha Special Operations Centre, may be appointed to perform the duties of the head of the SSU instead of Maliuk. However, Zelenskyy has still not abandoned the idea of handing over the Security Service to General Oleksandr Poklad, in whom Andrii Yermak had (or still has) high hopes.

Although Kyrylo Budanov, the new head of the President's Office, is unlikely to agree to such a candidate, as he has almost a blood feud with him.

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