Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky named a new boss for the country’s intelligence agency on Monday, a day after dismissing the previous spy chief who was also his childhood friend, transmits MIA. Deputy chief Vasyl Maliuk was appointed as interim chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in a presidential decree. On the same day, Zelensky also dismissed 28 secret service employees at various levels of the organization, citing “unsatisfactory work results.”
Former SBU boss Ivan Bakanov lost his job on Sunday, officially because of reports that many members of Ukraine’s intelligence community defected to work for Russian invaders and separatists in the country’s south and east amid Russia’s invasion on its neighbour.
Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova also lost her job for the same reason on Sunday. But multiple Ukrainian media outlets report that the real reason for Bakanov’s dismissal is his lack of background in intelligence, which has left him struggling for authority among his staff. Bakanov ran a television station before joining his friend Zelensky’s presidential campaign and then getting the job as head of the SBU.
Interim boss Maliuk was reportedly critical of the recent arrest of a former high-ranking SBU official who stands accused of high treason for feeding information to Russia during its invasion. Maliuk studied law at an SBU academy and has played a key role in SBU’s anti-corruption unit.
Meanwhile on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, Russian troops resumed their attacks near the town of Avdiivka close to the major city of Donetsk, according to the Ukrainian military. The attacks have been repelled, the Ukrainian General Staff said in its situation report. Russian-backed Donetsk separatists, on the other hand, said they had captured the village of Kamyanka.
The claims of both sides cannot be independently verified. The new attack efforts followed an order from Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. Having failed in its initial objective of capturing the capital Kiev and taking over all of Ukraine, Moscow’s new stated goal is to completely wrest the Donetsk region from Ukrainian control, as it did previously with the neighbouring Luhansk area. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, fierce fighting also continues along the defensive line between Siversk and Bakhmut in the northern part of the Donetsk region, with reports of a Russian capture of Siversk being denied.
Ukraine has been fending off the Russian invasion for nearly five months. The United Nations has recorded over 5,100 civilians killed. An adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow plans to impose tougher conditions on Ukraine if peace talks are resumed. According to Yuri Ushakov, concrete results were achieved during talks in March in Turkey before Kiev broke off contact.
However, “if negotiations are resumed now, it will be on completely different terms,” Ushakov said, according to the RBK news agency, without further details. Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine came to a complete halt after mass civilian graves were found in the Kiev suburb of Bucha following the withdrawal of Russian forces. There have been no new peace talks since.
