A shoot-out between Ukraine’s two leading security agencies on the streets of Kyiv has caused concern among residents already coming under intense Russian drone and missile attacks.
Days later, there are still more questions than answers about what happened and why. A video showing a man confessing to being a Russian spy -- which he has since said was recorded under duress -- has added to the confusion.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has taken swift action, firing the deputy heads of each organization on September 3 -- declaring "both agencies must be held accountable.” He'd previously said the gunfight was "disgraceful."
Who Was Involved?
The gun battle pitted Ukraine’s main domestic intelligence agency, known as the SBU, against the country’s military intelligence outlet, the HUR. Both have been carrying out armed operations against Russian forces.
Their firefight erupted on September 2, as the Ukrainian capital was targeted by Russian air strikes for the sixth day in a row.
“Both acted in a way that is absolutely unacceptable,” Zelenskyy said, adding that “two individuals implicated in the shooting” had been formally named as suspects amid an ongoing investigation.
Still, the details of the incident known to the public remain murky.
The jarring shoot-out appears to be connected to the earlier arrest of Stepan Kaplunov, deputy commander of the notorious Ukrainian-backed paramilitary group the Russian Volunteer Corps.
The corps first came to prominence with cross-border raids inside Russia in 2023.
Effectively overseen by the HUR's Tymur's Special Unit, it is mostly made up of Russian nationals.
'Kidnap' And 'Confession'
Kaplunov was "abducted" on August 23, without a detention record or legal counsel present, his lawyer, Taras Borovskiy, told RFE/RL.
Borovskiy said Kaplunov’s whereabouts were unknown until the early hours of September 2, when SBU officials brought him to his apartment to conduct a search.
HUR representatives were already waiting at the scene.
As the developments unfolded, “comrades and supporters of the HUR’s Tymur’s Special Unit began arriving” in the area as well, the lawyer added, saying that it was then that “the first groups that came here were attacked.”
Local residents told RFE/RL they were afraid to leave their apartments, having no idea what was going on in their street: Armed men wearing no identifying insignia were moving between the buildings, with the only way to tell them apart being the green and blue tapes they wore.
According to Borovskiy, three HUR servicemen were injured in the incident, with one suffering a bullet wound that severed an artery in his leg.
The SBU said the search of Kaplunov's apartment was part of a pretrial investigation into a "terrorist attack" allegedly organized by Russian special services and that an armed group of people was trying to disrupt measures being taken to collect and document evidence.
According to the agency, Russia was planning an assassination attempt against one of the leaders of the Russian opposition movement. During what it called “counter-sabotage efforts,” the SBU said it uncovered contacts between Kaplunov and Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
On September 3, the SBU published a video of Kaplunov confessing that he had been “approached by an agent acting in the interests of the [FSB] with the aim of recruiting him to carry out active measures to eliminate Ukrainian Defense Forces personnel.”
Kaplunov, who had earlier been released, said in an interview with Ukraine's Radio NV that he had agreed with the SBU version of events only "under psychological pressure.”
Inter-Agency Rivalry
Kaplunov's commander, Denis Nikitin, earlier told RFE/RL the SBU did not find anything compromising in their search of his apartment. The HUR claimed that there was a “targeted disinformation campaign” aimed at discrediting its combat units.
While the investigation into the incident is yet to unfold, it's been widely suggested that the clash lifted the lid on an ongoing rivalry between the two agencies. Indeed, this is not the first time they have clashed.
On March 5, 2022, just 12 days after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Denys Kiryeyev, a member of a Ukrainian delegation to negotiate with Russia in Belarus, was found dead on a Kyiv sidewalk.
The SBU did not publicly disclose its own version of the circumstances surrounding Kiryeyev’s death. But later that month, the agency reported that it had eliminated a Russian agent without naming him.
A 2023 report by The Wall Street Journal, citing then-head of the HUR Kyrylo Budanov, said Kiryeyev had been working with Ukrainian intelligence and had provided it with Russia’s invasion plans.
Following the incident, there were changes to the leaderships of both agencies. Budanov was recently appointed head of Zelenskyy's office.
