Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is cleaning the house.
In a series of layoffs this week, the President of Ukraine has fired his intelligence chief, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ivan Bakanov, and his attorney general, Iryna Venedikotva, for the concern posed by pro-Russian elements of Ukrainian security. services, although the rest of the country works to defend Russian forces in war.
A majority of lawmakers on Tuesday approved Zelensky’s censorship vote on Bakanov and Venedikotva, according to the BBC.
More recently, Zelensky has fired Volodymyr Horbenko, the SBU’s deputy director, according to the BBC. The regional leaders of several cities have also been dismissed.
As Russian and Ukrainian forces clash on the battlefield as the war reaches its fifth month, both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky know that slow-fire efforts to undermine both sides, and spies working for the ‘enemy, they may hide from view.
Zelensky said he was firing Bakanov and Venedikotva because many members of his agencies were working with Russia. More than 60 of his colleagues are working against Ukraine now, he said.
During the war, too, the effort has continued. SBU investigators caught one of these alleged spies this May, according to a CNN report. When asked what information he shared with Russia, the accused spy said he shared locations of valuable Ukrainian targets.
“Coordinates, movements, etc.,” the alleged collaborator said. “The locations of successes. That kind of thing. The situation in general, etc.
Ukraine has long been working to eliminate pro-Russian collaborators in the country, but according to some, work has become more urgent during the war. More than 800 people suspected of sabotaging or gathering intelligence in the war have been detained so far, Yevhenii Yenin, Ukraine’s first deputy interior minister, said last month.
The apparent unrest in the security services of Ukraine will not stop soon. David Arakhamia, leader of the People’s Servant Party, announced that as more information comes out, the firing storm will continue.
“There will be a lot of ‘cleaning’, because over the years many residents of the Russian special services have been secretly entrenched within the walls of the SBU, unfortunately,” he said, according to the BBC.
The decision to purge the SBU of alleged collaborators comes when Russia is also working to eliminate pro-Ukrainian elements in territories that Russian forces have also occupied in recent days. For weeks, the Russians have been chasing spies at the Zaproizhzhia nuclear power plant in an attempt to suppress pro-Ukraine sentiment.