Ukrainian spy agency officer shot dead with silenced pistol in Kyiv, reports say

KYIV: Ukraine said that one of its security service members was killed Thursday in central Kyiv, in what appeared to be the most recent targeted attack on security personnel since Russia invaded.

Moscow has accused Kyiv of orchestrating a spate of high-profile killings of Russian military officials or pro-Kremlin commentators since the Kremlin launched its invasion in February 2022.

Those attacks have been carried out both in Kremlin-controlled territory in Ukraine and on Russian soil.

“A criminal investigation has been launched into the murder of an SBU employee in the Golosiivsky district of Kyiv,” the Security Service of Ukraine told AFP in a statement.

Ukrainian media posted what appeared to be security camera footage showing a man walking through a parking lot with bags being attacked by another man who ran towards the victim.

The SBU did not identify the person killed in the attack nor specify what weapon was used. However, media outlets including the independent Ukrainska Pravda reported that the SBU officer killed was Colonel Ivan Voronych.

The suspect fired five times at the victim with a silenced pistol, it reported, citing SBU sources.

Russian military bloggers welcomed the killing and suggested Moscow was responsible.

“There are plenty of motives for eliminating this SBU employee, both within our special services and within Ukraine itself,” said Rybar, a pro-Kremlin Telegram channel linked to the Russian military.

It said the man worked for an SBU department that “was assigned special tasks, which, according to some reports, included sabotage operations against Russia.”

Russian war correspondent Alexander Kots called the killing “a good sign.”

“The enemy should be afraid on his own territory. There should be no safe places for him,” he said on Telegram.

The SBU said in its statement that an investigation had been opened into the killing of a member of law enforcement.

Police said separately they had discovered “the body of a man with a gunshot wound” in the same district, without linking the incident to the SBU.

Police in Kyiv released video from the crime scene and said that “criminal investigation officers, dog handlers and other services are working at the scene.”

High-profile Russians previously targeted
In April, an explosive device ripped through a parked car near Moscow, killing a senior Russian general. Images from the scene posted on social media showed a blaze that gutted a car.

That attack came four months after another Russian general was killed along with his deputy in an explosion in Moscow.

The blast appeared to be similar to previous attacks on Russians linked to Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine.

Kyiv has in some cases claimed responsibility for previous attacks.

Last year, Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian military’s chemical weapons unit, was killed by a bomb planted in a scooter in Moscow in December. Ukrainian security sources told CBS News the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) killed Kirillov in a special operation.

After Kirillov’s killing, Putin made a rare admission of failings by his powerful security agencies, saying: “We must not allow such very serious blunders to happen.”

In December 2023, Illia Kiva, a former pro-Moscow Ukrainian lawmaker who fled to Russia, was shot and killed near Moscow. The Ukrainian military intelligence lauded the killing, warning that other “traitors of Ukraine” would share the same fate.

Other attacks include the August 2022 car bombing of nationalist Darya Dugina and an explosion in a Saint Petersburg cafe in April 2023 that killed high-profile military correspondent Maxim Fomin, known as Vladlen Tatarsky. A Russian woman, who said she presented the figurine on orders of a contact in Ukraine, was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Courtesy: cbsnews