Ukraine’s president has appointed an experienced security official as acting head of the domestic security agency after a shake-up that has renewed questions over Russian intelligence infiltration of key ministries and suggested divisions within Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s inner circle.
After recent anonymous briefings against Zelenskiy’s childhood friend Ivan Bakanov – who had been in charge of the 30,000-strong state security service, the SBU, since 2019 – over claims of failure to counter Russian infiltration, he was abruptly suspended on Sunday along with the prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, who had been leading war crimes investigations.
Zelenskiy announced on Monday that Bakanov would be replaced by Vasyl Maliuk, a former first deputy head of the SBU who led the anti-corruption and organised crime unit of the agency’s central directorate.
While the reason cited for the dismissals was the claim of widespread Russian collaboration in the two departments, it also appears to reflect jostling for influence around the president among key players.
Zelenskiy, feted on the world stage as a wartime leader, had been dogged domestically before the invasion by accusations that he had appointed inexperienced outsiders, including friends, to jobs in which they were out of their depth.
Zelenskiy recently dismissed ambassadors to five countries including Germany, and several other envoys including those to Hungary, Norway, the Czech Republic and India. And last month, there was a public spat with the head of his armed forces.
Bakanov in particular was regarded as close to Zelenskiy, having grown up in the same city of Kryvyi Rih. He worked for Zelenskiy’s Studio Kvartal-95 production company and ran the former actor’s campaign headquarters during his presidential bid. At the time of his appointment, he was accused of holding a leading position in a private company registered in Spain in an apparent breach of Ukraine’s anti-corruption legislation.
While observers suggest that one motive is to demonstrate to the Ukrainian public that Zelenskiy will not tolerate underperformance, hostile briefings against key figures have ticked up in recent weeks.
Initial reports suggested that the pair had been fired, but Andriy Smyrnov, Zelenskiy’s deputy chief of staff, clarified that they had been suspended. “Everyone has been waiting long enough for more concrete and, perhaps, radical results from the heads of these two bodies to cleanse them of collaborators and traitors,” he said. “However, in the sixth month of the war, we continue to find dozens of such people at each of these institutions.”
An article for Politico three weeks ago quoted unnamed senior officials as saying Zelenskiy was planning to replace Bakanov for lack of competence, not least after complaints that his agency was ill-prepared for the Russian invasion, in particular over its failure to destroy a key bridge to Kherson in the south.
The article suggested that Zelenskiy and Bakanov rarely spoke, that the president was fretting about the optics of sacking someone from his inner circle and that SBU daily operations were being run from the presidential office.
An official close to Zelenskiy told the website: “We are highly unsatisfied with his job and are working to get rid of him. We are not satisfied with his managerial, you know, [skills], because now you need … anti-crisis management skills like we don’t think that he has.”
On 27 June, when asked about Bakanov’s position at a press briefing, Zelenskiy seemed to suggest his job was safe. “As for the head of the security service of Ukraine, if I wanted to fire him, I would have already fired him,” he said.
The presidential decree announcing the suspensions of the two officials cited hundreds of criminal proceedings over alleged treason and collaboration by people within their departments and other law enforcement agencies.
“In particular, more than 60 employees of the prosecutor’s office and the SBU [state security service] have remained in the occupied territory and work against our state,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address to the nation.
“Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the state’s national security, and the links recorded between Ukrainian security forces and Russian special services, raise very serious questions about their respective leaders.”
Over the weekend, Oleh Kulinich, a former head of the SBU in Crimea, who was fired in March, was arrested on suspicion of high treason.
#Ukraine finally arrested the top ranked mole, long-time Russian FSB agent Oleg Kulinich (linked to sanctioned by the US Andrey Derkach). Since 2020, Kulinich was returned by Ukr top spy Ivan Bakanov to top ranks in @ServiceSsu & responsible for occupied #Crimea. Thread⬇️ pic.twitter.com/mZxtrNaDpH
— Viktor Kovalenko (@MrKovalenko) July 16, 2022
The suspension of Venediktova, who was another former staffer in Zelenskiy’s campaign headquarters, was seen as more surprising. Admired by western officials and media, she has, however, been a more controversial figure in Ukraine over her department’s failures regarding a number of major anti-corruption cases.
On the frontline, Russian shelling in battle-scarred eastern Ukraine left six people dead, Kyiv said on Monday.
Rescue workers in blue helmets could be seen digging through debris and clearing rubble from the collapsed remains of a two-storey building in Toretsk that was struck by Russian artillery.
Russia also disclosed on Monday that the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, had ordered the military to concentrate on destroying Ukraine’s western-supplied rockets and artillery, which have hit several dozen Russian ammunition stockpiles and command centres since coming into service.
EU foreign ministers are convening to discuss strengthening sanctions against Moscow and the bloc’s foreign policy chief warned of the “life and death” consequences of Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea grain exports.
However, with officials from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN likely to meet again this week to discuss resuming exports, a Turkish official raised the prospect that lingering “small problems” surrounding a deal could be overcome.
