Russian agents who gunned down Ukrainian Security Service officer in Kyiv killed during arrest, says SBU

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said suspected Russian intelligence agents were behind last week’s killing of Ivan Voronych, a colonel in the agency. The two suspects were shot dead after resisting arrest in the Kyiv region, according to the SBU.

SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk described the suspects as “an FSB agent-combat group.” “As a result of search and counterintelligence operations, we located the enemy hideout. During the arrest, they resisted — there was an exchange of gunfire — so the scum were eliminated,” Malyuk said.

According to the agency, the assassination was carried out by a man and a woman who had been tracking Voronych on orders from a handler. The handler later gave them the coordinates of a weapons cache containing a pistol equipped with a suppressor.

Voronych was shot dead on July 10 in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district. Surveillance footage appears to show him being killed shortly after exiting an apartment building.

According to The New York Times, Voronych served in the SBU’s Fifth Directorate, which conducts operations inside Russia and in Russian-occupied territories. He reportedly led the unit “for a time.”