The vast spy agency behind the death of the Russian general

The scooter would not have looked out of place outside an apartment building in Moscow, where two-wheeled e-bikes are a regular mode of transportation for many of the Russian capital’s 13 million residents.

But this item — a key component of a complex and deadly operation — was carrying something other than a passenger: an explosive device laced with between 100 and 300 grams of TNT, according to Russian investigators.

The bomb was placed near the building on Moscow’s Ryazansky Prospekt by an undercover agent on orders from Ukraine’s state security service, the SBU, people familiar with the attack said.

A hidden camera recorded what happened next. The bomb was detonated before dawn when Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, head of Russia’s radiological, chemical and biological defense forces, emerged from the building with his aide. Explosion Both men were killed.

The assassination was the final blow in a rising shadow war Between Kiev and Moscow, and carried out by the large and powerful state intelligence agencies, both successors to the Soviet Union’s spy agencies, the Security Service of Ukraine was a direct descendant of the KGB.

Operating behind enemy lines, these agencies have targeted military and political officials, 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 State Security Service, which the United States and other allies have long urged Kiev to reform, has been driven by internal competition with the Military Intelligence Directorate known as GUR. He became what an intelligence official involved in planning the operations called “the liquidator of the Russians.”

A Ukrainian security service official confirmed that his agency was responsible for Kirillov’s killing, describing him as a “war criminal” who “ordered the use of banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian army.” “Such a shameful end awaits anyone who kills Ukrainians,” he warned.

The State Security Service has been largely inwardly focused, but since then Russia It invaded Ukraine in 2014, and has operated inside Kremlin-occupied Ukraine and inside Russia. Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, it has attacked Russia’s Crimean bridgehead and destroyed a significant portion of its Black Sea fleet with naval drones.

The intelligence official pointed to several killings of pro-Russian separatist leaders in the Moscow-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk regions between 2014 and 2021 carried out by Kiev agents.

Another intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Ukrainian Security Service agents operated within Russia’s borders, but also recruited anti-Kremlin Russians to carry out sabotage and even assassinations. Federal Security Service He said On Wednesday, an Uzbek suspect was arrested in Kirilov’s killing.

Ukraine’s security service has become a crucial tool for Kiev as it fights Russia on multiple fronts. Andrei Soldatov, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said Russia has struggled to counter its efforts. “The FSB (Russia’s main security agency) is very good at investigating what actually happened, but not very good at gathering intelligence about what will happen. It’s a different set of skills,” he said.

“For this reason, the agency has to be a very good information-gathering agency, which means there is trust and a good exchange of information — something you don’t see between Russian agencies.”

Valentin Nalyvychenko, a member of parliament who twice served as head of Ukraine’s security service, said the spy agency “collected a lot of information and counter-intelligence data” about Russia’s military and intelligence leadership. It found ways to plant moles, penetrate communications inside enemy territory, and identify weak points in Moscow’s intelligence network.

Part of the effectiveness of the Ukrainian security service comes from its huge size, which, ironically, is a result of its Soviet legacy. When Ukraine gained independence in 1991, the SBU inherited many of the structures, resources, and responsibilities of the KGB, and did not reduce its size.

With more than 30,000 employees and even more unregistered agents, the Ukrainian Security Service is almost as large as the FBI, with 35,000 agents. It is more than seven times the size of the UK’s internal security service, MI5, and more than four times the size of Israel’s Mossad.

“One of the main tasks of the Ukrainian Security Service, especially in wartime, is to confront the enemy’s special services,” Vasyl Malyuk, head of the SBU, said in previously unpublished responses to questions sent by the Financial Times earlier this year.

Malyuk refused to comment directly on operations inside Russia. But he said: “The position of the security service is clear and unequivocal: every crime committed by the aggressor must be punished.”

Ukraine’s security service rarely claims explicit public credit for assassinations. Instead, they often choose plausible deniability.

In August 2022, the agency planted a bomb in a car belonging to Russian extreme nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a supporter of the war in Ukraine. But Dogen wasn’t driving the car; His daughter Daria Dugina was behind the wheel and He was killed when it exploded.

The work of the State Security Service was often controversial. Since President Volodymyr Zelensky took office, he has implemented… Fake assassination the story of a Russian dissident journalist in Kiev exposing a team of assassins hired by Moscow to destabilize Ukraine; It engaged in monitoring investigative journalists and activists who reported on alleged corruption within its ranks; She faced many embezzlement scandals.

“(Ukrainian security service) has enormous power – some might say too much power,” a Western diplomat told the Financial Times.

The diplomat said the agency had proven for many years to be largely impervious to major reforms, despite urging from Ukraine’s biggest backer, the United States, other members of the G7 and European Union countries.

But amid the war with Russia, those Western countries have put aside some grievances and strengthened 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.

“What we started in 2014 is now successful,” Nalivaychenko said of her cooperation with Western agencies.

The SBU has come a long way since late February 2014, when it was destroyed by former president Viktor Yanukovych in the wake of the Euromaidan revolution. Before fleeing, Yanukovych ordered a raid on the agency, where his agents stole important state secrets and burned what they could not remove by car or helicopter.

Ukraine’s security service, already suffering from trust problems, suffered major defections in the spring and summer of that year, as Russia annexed Crimea and took control of cities in eastern Ukraine.

As the new director of Ukraine’s Security Service at the time, Nalyvychenko inherited a fractured agency filled with pro-Kremlin spies. Thousands of agents were suspected of collaborating. A purge campaign ensued, with the authorities arresting dozens of their spies and opening investigations into treason cases.

“We started from scratch, from the operational files burned in the Ukrainian security service’s backyard,” he said.

Nalyvaychenko said Kiev brought in younger, more loyal patriotic agents to the region, which lies within Ukraine’s internationally recognized 1991 borders.

Since the large-scale Russian invasion began nearly three years ago, not a month has passed without us hearing a headline about the killing of a Russian official who participated in its war effort at the hands of Ukrainian security service agents.

Last month, Ukraine’s Security Service claimed responsibility for killing Valery Trankovsky, chief of staff of the 41st Missile Brigade of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet, in a car bombing in occupied Crimea.

But there are times when credit is given to its sister agency, the Directorate of Military Intelligence known as GUR. Under the supervision of its mysterious chief, Kirilo Budanov, the unit also conducted covert operations and assassinations outside enemy lines.

The two agencies are competing for bragging rights, with each trying to outdo the other by assassinating high-ranking officials or striking larger military targets deeper and deeper inside Russia. Sometimes they cooperate.

This is not the first time that the work of the Ukrainian security service has caused the Russian defense establishment to despair. Yuri Kotenok, a Russian war correspondent, wrote that Ukrainian intelligence services “feel they have complete impunity for Russia.” He added: “It is clear that no one doubted Kiev’s role, but the fact that the enemy is openly bragging about it is clear symptoms.”