Officer of the Ukrainian Espionage Agency shot dead with silenced gun in Kyiv, according to reports

Ukraine said that one of the members of his security service was killed Thursday in the center of kyiv, in what seemed to be the most recent attack on security staff since then Russia invaded.

Moscow has accused Kyiv of orchestrate a high profile series Russian military officers murders or Pro-Kremlin commentators since the Kremlin launched its invasion in February 2022.

These attacks have been carried out both in the territory controlled by the Kremlin in Ukraine and in the Russian soil.

“A criminal investigation has been launched to the murder of an SBU employee in the kyiv district in Golosiivsky,” said the Ukraine Security Service to the News in a statement.

The Ukrainian media published what seemed to be images of security cameras showing a man walking through a parking lot with bags attacked by another man who ran towards the victim.

The SBU did not identify the murdered person in the attack or specify which weapon was used. However, the media, including Independiente Ukrainska Pravda, reported that SBU officer killed was Colonel Ivan Voronych.

The suspect shot the victim five times with a silenced gun, he reported, citing SBU sources.

Russian military bloggers welcomed the murder and suggested that Moscow was responsible.

“There are many reasons to eliminate this SBU employee, both within our special services and in Ukraine,” said Rybar, a Pro-Kremlin telegram channel linked to the Russian army.

He said that the man worked for a SBU department that “special tasks were assigned, which, according to some reports, included sabotage operations against Russia.”

Russian war correspondent Alexander Kots described the murder “a good sign.”

“The enemy should be afraid in his own territory. There should be no safe places for him,” he said in Telegram.

The SBU said in his statement that an investigation had been opened to the murder of a police member.

The police said separately that they had discovered “the body of a man with a gunshot wound” in the same district, without linking the incident with the SBU.

Police in kyiv launched a video of the crime scene and said that “criminal investigation officers, dog manipulators and other services are working on the scene.”

The high profile Russians attacked above

In April, an explosive device crossed a parked car near Moscow, Kill a superior Russian general. The images of the scene published on social networks showed a fire that destroyed a car.

That attack arrived four months later Another Russian general was killed along with his deputy in an explosion in Moscow.

The explosion seemed to be similar to the previous attacks against Russians linked to Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine.

In some cases, Kyiv has assumed the responsibility of previous attacks.

Last year, Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Army Chemical Weapons Unit, was killed by a planted bomb In a scooter in Moscow in December. Ukrainian security sources told News themezone that the Ukraine Security Service (SBU) killed Kirillov in a special operation.

After the murder of Kirillov, Putin made a rare admission of failures by his powerful security agencies, saying: “We must not allow such serious mistakes to occur.”

In December 2023, Illia Kiva, former Ukrainian pro -oscú legislator who fled to Russia, He was shot dead near Moscow. Ukrainian military intelligence praised the murder, warning that other “traitors of Ukraine” would share the same destination.

Other attacks include August 2022 Automobile bombardment of the nationalist Darya Dugina And an explosion in a coffee in St. Petersburg in April 2023 that killed the high profile military correspondent Maximum Fknown as Vladlen Tatarsky. A Russian woman, who said she presented the figure by order of a contact in Ukraine, He was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

• Ukraine
• Kyiv