A senior Ukrainian intelligence officer has been gunned down in broad daylight in Kyiv, officials have said.
The agent of the domestic Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was shot several times in a car park after being approached by an unidentified assailant who then fled the scene, footage circulated on social media shows.
The spy agency did not identify the victim, though Ukrainian media outlets have named him as Colonel Ivan Voronych.
The SBU is primarily concerned with internal security and counter-intelligence, akin to the UK’s MI5. But since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, it has also played a prominent role in terrorist attacks and sabotage attacks inside Russia.
Sources within Ukraine’s security services have previously told the media – including the BBC – that they were behind the killing of the high-ranking Russian Gen Igor Kirillov in December 2024.
Neither the SBU nor the Kyiv police gave a possible motive for the shooting.
The Ukrainian capital’s police force said in a statement that officers arrived at the scene to find a man’s body with a gunshot wound.
It said officers were working to identify the assailant and that “measures are being taken to detain him”.
