{"id":2057,"date":"2026-09-03T17:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T16:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/?p=2057"},"modified":"2026-09-03T17:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T16:12:10","slug":"zelenskyy-condemns-gunfight-between-rival-ukrainian-intelligence-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/?p=2057","title":{"rendered":"Zelenskyy condemns gunfight between rival Ukrainian intelligence services"},"content":{"rendered":"

KYIV \u2014 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded accountability after armed personnel associated with two of Ukraine\u2019s most powerful security institutions exchanged gunfire in Kyiv, leaving several military intelligence officers wounded and exposing an extraordinary dispute inside the country\u2019s wartime security establishment.<\/p>\n

The confrontation involved personnel from the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, and Ukraine\u2019s Defence Intelligence directorate, commonly known by the Ukrainian acronym HUR and sometimes rendered as GUR. The agencies have played prominent but distinct roles since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, with the SBU principally responsible for domestic security, counterintelligence and counterterrorism while HUR operates under the Ministry of Defence and conducts military intelligence and special operations.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy addressed the incident publicly after receiving reports from officials, describing what happened between individual units of the two services as an \u201cabsolutely disgraceful situation.\u201d He said Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko and the State Bureau of Investigation would establish the facts by examining testimony, statements and the sequence of events.<\/p>\n

The president made clear that the case should not be treated merely as an internal dispute between security institutions. He demanded accountability for those involved, personnel decisions by the leadership of the respective services and internal investigations within both organizations. In unusually forceful language, Zelenskyy said gunfire in Ukraine should be directed only against Russian occupying forces in defence of the country.<\/p>\n

The clash took place on September 2 in Kyiv, with Ukrainian media locating the confrontation on Yuriya Shumskoho Street in the city\u2019s Dniprovskyi district. Residents reported hearing gunfire, while images and video circulating from the area showed a significant security presence. At least three personnel associated with military intelligence were reported wounded.<\/p>\n

What led to the shooting remains disputed. The SBU said its officers were carrying out urgent investigative measures as part of a pre-trial investigation into an alleged terrorist attack organized by Russia\u2019s Federal Security Service, the FSB, against a figure associated with the Russian opposition.<\/p>\n

According to the SBU\u2019s official account, personnel conducting a search at one location encountered a group that launched an armed attack on the operational and investigative team. The service said the group attempted to obstruct the investigative action and used vehicles to block the officers\u2019 movement.<\/p>\n

The SBU said its Alfa Special Operations Centre was subsequently deployed to stop what it described as armed resistance and protect personnel involved in the operation. Weapons were used during the confrontation, and some of the people resisting the operation were injured, according to the agency. The SBU added that detained individuals were found to belong to a unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and that investigators had seized weapons and documents.<\/p>\n

The agency said authorities were examining the role of each person involved and had not yet reached a final legal classification of the events. Investigative proceedings relating to threats and an alleged attempt on the life of a law-enforcement officer were being conducted under the procedural supervision of the Office of the Prosecutor General.<\/p>\n

Accounts associated with military intelligence sharply challenged important elements of the SBU narrative. Ukrainian reporting citing HUR-linked sources and commanders said the confrontation was connected to Stepan Kaplunov, deputy commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, an anti-Kremlin formation composed largely of Russian nationals that has fought on Ukraine\u2019s side and operates within a structure linked to military intelligence.<\/p>\n

Kaplunov\u2019s detention became the central point of dispute. HUR-linked accounts accused the SBU of improperly detaining or abducting him and alleged that SBU officers opened fire on military intelligence personnel. The SBU, by contrast, portrayed its actions as part of an effort to prevent an FSB-organized terrorist operation and said its officers encountered armed resistance while carrying out lawful investigative measures.<\/p>\n

\"Ukrainian<\/figure>\n

Ukrainian media reported that Kaplunov was later released. His precise status and the circumstances surrounding his detention remained unclear as investigators began reviewing the incident. The competing narratives leave several important questions unanswered, including the legal basis for the original detention, whether all relevant agencies had been informed about the operation, how armed personnel from separate institutions came into direct confrontation and who fired the first shot.<\/p>\n

Video published by Ukrainian media appears to capture portions of the confrontation but does not conclusively establish responsibility for the initial gunfire. Censor.NET, which published footage it said showed the final phase of the standoff, reported that its journalists could not determine from the recording who fired first. Sources from the two institutions blamed each other.<\/p>\n

The uncertainty makes the independent investigation ordered by Zelenskyy particularly significant. The State Bureau of Investigation has jurisdiction over serious alleged offences involving state officials and members of security bodies, while the prosecutor general\u2019s office can oversee the legal process. Zelenskyy\u2019s insistence that testimony from all sides be checked signals an effort by the presidency to prevent either security institution from becoming the sole arbiter of the incident.<\/p>\n

The president also signed a decree dismissing Oleh Khramov as head of the SBU department responsible for protecting state secrets and licensing. The decree, dated September 2, simply records Khramov\u2019s dismissal and does not specify a reason. Its timing immediately intensified scrutiny of whether the personnel change was connected to Zelenskyy\u2019s demand for consequences following the Kyiv confrontation, although an explicit causal connection was not stated in the published decree.<\/p>\n

The episode is politically sensitive because the SBU and HUR have both acquired enormous operational importance during more than four years of full-scale war. Ukrainian security services have been responsible for countering Russian intelligence networks, investigating alleged collaborators, protecting critical infrastructure and supporting operations against military and security targets connected to Russia.<\/p>\n

HUR has meanwhile become particularly associated with intelligence gathering, long-range and clandestine operations, prisoner exchanges and cooperation with armed formations composed of Russian nationals opposing the Kremlin. The overlapping security environment inevitably places multiple agencies in contact with the same networks of operatives, informants and military personnel.<\/p>\n

That complexity increases the importance of formal deconfliction procedures. Security institutions operating covertly may need to protect information about agents or sensitive missions even from other government bodies, but the Kyiv shooting illustrates the potentially severe consequences when investigative authorities, intelligence structures and armed special units encounter one another without sufficient coordination.<\/p>\n

The stakes are particularly high during wartime. Russia has repeatedly sought to penetrate Ukrainian institutions, recruit agents and exploit political or bureaucratic disputes. Ukrainian officials therefore face the difficult task of investigating genuine counterintelligence concerns while ensuring that accusations of Russian involvement do not become a substitute for transparent examination of misconduct between Ukrainian agencies.<\/p>\n

The SBU\u2019s assertion that the operation was connected to an FSB terrorist plot is itself serious. Russia has been accused by Ukrainian and European authorities of carrying out or preparing assassination, sabotage and espionage operations far beyond the conventional battlefield. The SBU routinely announces arrests of suspected Russian agents and alleged attempts to target military personnel, defence-sector figures and infrastructure inside Ukraine.<\/p>\n

But because the latest case culminated in Ukrainians firing on other Ukrainian security personnel, the government must now investigate two issues simultaneously: the alleged Russian plot that prompted the original operation and the conduct of the Ukrainian forces that encountered each other during it. Establishing one does not automatically resolve the other.<\/p>\n

\"Ukrainian<\/figure>\n

Zelenskyy\u2019s intervention also reflects the broader political risk created when powerful wartime institutions appear to act at cross-purposes. Ukraine has operated under martial law throughout the full-scale invasion, granting security bodies extensive responsibilities while concentrating national resources on defence. Public confidence that those powers remain subject to a common chain of state authority is therefore essential.<\/p>\n

The confrontation comes as Ukrainian cities continue to face Russian missile and drone attacks and Kyiv attempts to expand domestic air-defence production, obtain additional interceptors from foreign partners and preserve military manpower. Against that backdrop, an armed clash between Ukrainian agencies is particularly damaging because it consumes attention and investigative resources that would otherwise be directed toward the external threat.<\/p>\n

It could also affect foreign perceptions. Ukraine relies extensively on intelligence, military and law-enforcement cooperation with European and other Western partners. Such relationships depend not only on battlefield capability but also on confidence in command structures, institutional discipline, information security and mechanisms for investigating abuses.<\/p>\n

There is currently no public evidence that the Kyiv confrontation represents a broader breakdown between the SBU and HUR as institutions, and Zelenskyy referred specifically to individual units rather than condemning either service as a whole. Both organizations continue to operate against Russian threats, and the government has not indicated that their core missions have been disrupted.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the fact that an operational disagreement escalated to gunfire makes the case exceptional. Security personnel in heavily armed wartime agencies routinely work under pressure and amid incomplete information, but Ukraine\u2019s leadership is now confronting the possibility that institutional rivalry or failed coordination reached a level capable of producing casualties in the capital.<\/p>\n

Further personnel decisions may follow once investigators establish the chain of command and determine what orders were issued before and during the confrontation. Zelenskyy has explicitly called on the heads of the security services to take action regarding personnel involved, suggesting disciplinary consequences need not wait for the completion of every criminal or procedural inquiry.<\/p>\n

The eventual findings will also need to reconcile the sharply different descriptions already placed in the public domain. Investigators will be expected to examine weapons, communications, operational orders, surveillance material, medical evidence and testimony from personnel from both services. The handling of Kaplunov before, during and after the operation is likely to be a central part of that reconstruction.<\/p>\n

For Kyiv, the immediate priority is therefore twofold: determine whether Russian intelligence was preparing an attack against the individual identified in reporting surrounding the case, and establish why Ukrainian security personnel ended up using firearms against one another. Zelenskyy\u2019s response indicates that the presidency considers the second question a matter of state discipline, not simply an operational misunderstanding.<\/p>\n

Until the official investigation is completed, claims made by either side about responsibility for the first shots or the legality of individual actions remain allegations rather than established findings. The SBU has published its version of events, while military intelligence-linked sources have publicly disputed it. No final investigative report establishing the complete sequence of the confrontation had been released as of September 3.<\/p>\n

The incident has consequently become a test of Ukraine\u2019s ability to police its own wartime security establishment while continuing to confront an external adversary. Zelenskyy\u2019s message was deliberately categorical: institutions entrusted with weapons and exceptional security powers remain accountable to the state, and conflict between them cannot be normalized even under the pressures of a prolonged war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KYIV \u2014 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded accountability after armed personnel associated with two of Ukraine\u2019s most powerful security institu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1006],"class_list":["post-2057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-security-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swedishpost.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}