The State Bureau of Investigation has denied passing information about SBU officers to the Russian side. In a press release published on 4 September, the SBI said it had not provided any data on employees of Ukraine’s special services to “representatives of the Russian side”, and that its director Oleksii Sukhachov had issued no such instruction.
In the morning, former MP Ihor Mosiychuk, who now runs a Telegram channel with more than half a million subscribers, published the names and other details of officers from the 5th Directorate of the SBU’s Department of Counterintelligence, who were detained after a shootout with the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine in Rusanivka. Mosiychuk is under National Security and Defence Council sanctions for spreading pro-Russian propaganda.
Blogger Ihor Lachenko claimed that a request for information about these people was allegedly made by an SBI employee on the orders of director Oleksii Sukhachov.
“We state: the State Bureau of Investigation did not pass to representatives of the Russian side any data on employees of Ukraine’s special services. The claim that SBI director Oleksii Sukhachov allegedly instructed Bureau staff to pass such data to the Russian side is also untrue. The spread of unsubstantiated and false accusations is a deliberate attempt to discredit the State Bureau of Investigation and, directly, its leadership,” the Bureau said.
In connection with the dissemination of personal data of law-enforcement officers, the relevant information has been entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations. Law enforcement is establishing the source of the information and its dissemination, as well as all the circumstances surrounding its publication.
What is this about?
On 2 September, a clash between representatives of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine and the SBU took place in Kyiv’s Dniprovskyi district. A unit of the Russian Volunteer Corps, which is subordinate to the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, reported the disappearance of its deputy commander. It later emerged that Stepan Kaplunov had been detained by the SBU. In an interview with Radio NV, Kaplunov said that after being abducted on 23 August he was held for nine days at two sites. According to him, throughout that time he was deprived of the ability to see where he was, and during the first two days he was intensively interrogated.
On 3 September, the SBU reported that it had obtained operational information about preparations for an FSB-commissioned killing. The security service claims that “contacts were uncovered between the deputy commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, and the special services of the Russian Federation. The individual in question was to prepare an attempt on the life of one of the leaders of the Russian opposition movement, who was due to arrive in Ukraine at that time.”
The SBU says the detainee admitted contacts with the FSB and cooperated with the investigation, so no preventive measure was applied to him.
“While SBU officers were carrying out urgent investigative actions to collect and secure evidence of the specified criminal offence, an absolutely unacceptable conflict situation arose, which led to gunfire,” the statement said.
On 3 September, the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine said that, to carry out the campaign, its organisers plan to involve media outlets, bloggers and Telegram channels with a dubious reputation, including in return for financial reward.
That same day, the President said the deputy heads of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine and the SBU would be dismissed. The SBI is handling the investigation. Yesterday, the Prosecutor General said that suspicions had been issued to one representative from each agency.