Shot, poisoned, blown up: the hit squads from Kiev New job: Marin withdraws from Finnish politics

They operate behind enemy lines, even on Russian territory. Your target is not the troop formations or ammunition depots. Ukrainian special forces are instead targeting key generals, politicians and collaborators. Recently, Russian Major General Yuri Afanasyevsky received a mobile phone containing an explosive. He and his son were injured. All that was said from Ukraine was that there had been an explosion in the Russian military building.

Dozens of such attacks are said to be taking place, and Ukrainian special forces and spies are behind it, writes The Economist. They were shot, blown up and even killed with poisoned brandy. There have been no official statements from Kiev. But hints: “Anyone who betrays Ukraine, shoots at Ukrainians or fires missiles at Ukrainians should know that they are being watched and will be brought to justice,” Andriy Cherniak of the Ukrainian military intelligence service HUR recently threatened. And the head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said in July: “If you ask us to develop a kind of Mossad… we don’t need that. We already have that.” The Israeli secret service Mossad has repeatedly been linked to covert operations and assassinations.

SBU boss: eliminate terrorists

The domestic secret service SBU is said to be responsible for sabotage and attacks. A special department, the Fifth Counterintelligence Directorate, is responsible for the dirty work, the report said. When the prisons were full of collaborators, the course was changed: “We came to the realization that we had to eliminate the terrorists,” said Valentin Nalivaychenko, the former head of the SBU.

In 2015 and 2016, after Russia occupied Crimea in violation of international law, several Moscow military officers were targeted. One was hit by a missile, another was in the elevator when it exploded. Ukrainian pro-Russian separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko was killed in 2018 when an explosion occurred in the cafe where he was sitting. Another prominent victim was Darya Dugina, the daughter of Russian nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin, whose car was blown up. Here too, it is suspected that Ukraine had a hand in the matter. In July, Stanislav Rzhitsky, a Russian submarine commander, was shot dead while jogging. He is said to have fired rockets a year earlier that killed 38 Ukrainians in Vinnytsia.

According to intelligence experts, the homicide unit is expected to play a central role in Ukrainian activities beyond the front lines. The budget is five times larger than that of the secret service HUR. The SBU is also believed to be behind the attack on the Crimean Bridge in October 2022.

There are doubts about the scale of the attacks

But the spies aren’t the only ones conducting special operations. According to The Economist, the Special Operations Forces (SSO) also play an important role when it comes to secret missions. Their duties include coordinating with partisans, who are said to be responsible for many acts of sabotage and reconnaissance. Denys Yaroslavskij, an officer with the SSO, tells the magazine that the agency is now pushing for more authority to conduct operations within Russia.

It is not known how much President Volodymyr Zelensky knows about special operations. Even insiders are holding back. He is said to have approved some of the actions himself. But as The Economist has learned, he is said to have instructed that civilian casualties should be avoided. There also seems to be dissatisfaction within the SBU about the selection of targets. These are “marginal figures”, an insider told the American magazine. They served more to impress the president than to make a difference. “There are always clowns, prostitutes and jokers in the Russian government. Kill one and another will take his place.”

Andriy Yusov, spokesman for the military intelligence service HUR, emphasizes that Ukraine avoids “blind terror.” The goal is “not to scare the enemy,” he says, but “to drive them out of the occupied Ukrainian territories.” But Ukrainian spies would continue to “identify and exploit Russian psychology and vulnerabilities” wherever they find them.

Used sources:

(t-online, wan)