Head of Zelenskyy's office on shootout between Security Service and Defence Intelligence: thorough investigation needed
Kyrylo Budanov, Head of the President's Office and former head of Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU), has said that the State Bureau of Investigation will be looking into a shootout in Kyiv in which representatives of DIU and the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) were involved.
Source: Budanov in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda; RBC-Ukraine
Quote: "The State Bureau of Investigation will now deal with the situation. It is important to ensure a thorough and impartial investigation, but no one has the right to abduct servicemen with impunity, open fire in the streets of our cities, or issue or carry out criminal orders."
Details: Commenting on the situation, Dmytro Lytvyn, the president's communications adviser, told journalists that Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the "heads of the agencies" to let the public know what is happening.
Background:
- On 1 September, the Russian Volunteer Corps said that its deputy commander for combat operations, Stepan Kaplunov, had been abducted by unknown individuals in the courtyard of a residential building. [The Russian Volunteer Corps is a military and political organisation established in 2022 that consists of Russian volunteers who have been fighting for Ukraine since 2014]
- On 2 September, the SSU said that, jointly with DIU, it had foiled a terrorist attack against a leader of a Russian opposition political nationalist movement who had arrived in Ukraine. DIU released a similar statement, but it was later deleted.
- Police cordoned off Shumskoho Street in Kyiv's Dniprovskyi district, where the standoff between the SSU and DIU took place.
- Ukrainska Pravda learned that representatives of the State Bureau of Investigation and the head of the SSU's Special Group Alpha had arrived at the scene.
- The SSU said that its officers came under armed attack while conducting investigative actions in a case concerning a terrorist attack being plotted by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).
- The Prosecutor General's Office has launched a pre-trial investigation.
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