KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for “accountability” and “personnel decisions” after a shootout in Kyiv involving the country’s major security services.
In his daily evening video address, Zelenskyy said the incident took place between Ukraine’s Security Service, known as the SBU, and the country’s military intelligence agency, the HUR, calling it “absolutely disgraceful.”
“The only people anyone should be shooting at are the Russian occupiers, in defense of Ukraine,” he added. “No other exchange of gunfire will ever be treated by our state as something anyone is permitted to engage in.”
Gunfire woke residents in Kyiv’s Bereznyaky district early on September 2, with witnesses saying they saw wounded people and traces of blood at the scene of the incident.
Shortly after the stand-off had ended, conflicting versions of what had happened emerged.
The SBU issued two contradictory statements: first, saying that it was working alongside the HUR to avert a Russian “terrorist attack,” and then, saying that it had resisted a “group of individuals” who had tried to block a search effort.
In a later comment to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, a commander of HUR’s “Tymur” special forces unit said that the SBU agents were “detaining HUR personnel and opening fire without warning” at them.
The Russian Volunteer Corps
The shootout appears to be connected to earlier reports concerning the arrest of Stepan Kaplunov, deputy commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, a Ukrainian-backed paramilitary group affiliated with the HUR.
Taras Borovskiy, Kaplunov’s lawyer, told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that his client was “abducted” on August 23, and that his whereabouts remained unknown until September 1. He added that the SBU had not responded to his requests for comment.
From here the details of the story get even murkier.
According to Borovskiy, overnight on September 2, the SBU brought Kaplunov to his apartment to conduct a search. But HUR representatives and his friends were already present there.
The HUR commander said he reached an agreement with the SBU unit commander but “other SBU personnel” then opened fire.
Separately, Denis Nikitin, the commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, told RFE/RL that the SBU had not found anything compromising in Kaplunov’s apartment.
Later, Zelenskyy said prosecutors would investigate the incident.
