Latest news with #IvanVoronych
The Guardian
an hour ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Ukraine wing of US-founded terrorist group says it was involved in killing of intelligence officer in Kyiv
The Ukrainian wing of an internationally proscribed far-right terrorist organization with suspected links to Russia is claiming involvement in the brazen assassination of an intelligence officer in Kyiv. Late last week, a masked assailant shot and killed Col Ivan Voronych of the Ukraine security service (SBU) as he walked through a Kyiv parking lot in broad daylight. Shocking footage of the assassination circulated in Ukrainian media and caused a stir among residents in the capital. For months, the Base, born in the US and with a web of cells all over the world, has been offering money to supporters or willing participants for targeted assassinations and attacks on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine, coinciding with allegations that its American founder, Rinaldo Nazzaro, was a Kremlin spy. Ukrainian authorities have also been warning in recent weeks of similar Russian intelligence operations covertly paying unknowing citizens to carry out sabotage inside their country. 'The shooting of the SBU colonel is not the end, but only the beginning,' said a statement posted on a Telegram channel that appears to be linked to the the Base's supposed Ukrainian cell. 'We will continue our struggle until justice prevails.' The same post, translated from Ukrainian, added that the group's members were 'proud of our associates' who carried out the killing and said they didn't care if naysayers thought of them as 'terrorists and extremists'. In another message to subscribers, the account also threatens other Ukrainian public figures and promises: 'The hunt continues!' Sources in the counter-terrorism field reviewed the posts and said they appeared credible and represented an escalation from the Base, which is now either endorsing treasonous murders inside of Ukraine, actively commissioning them, or both. On Sunday, the SBU announced it had killed the two suspects they say were instructed and supplied with a pistol to assassinate Voronych on behalf of 'Russian special services' handlers. Other media reports in Ukraine reported the assassins were foreign nationals linked to criminal groups and were remotely supported by Russian intelligence. Although originally a stateside extremist group, the Base had never publicly allied itself to the geopolitical goals of the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin, until very recently. In April, the Base started waging what it described as an insurgency to establish an all-white ethnostate in the western Ukrainian oblast of Zakarpattia. So far, videos of arson attacks against what appear to be police and military vehicles, electric boxes and other targets have been uploaded to its accounts on Telegram, along with dozens of other geolocated videos inside Ukraine. Nazzaro, who is a former Pentagon contractor with the US special forces, declined to comment on the Ukraine cell of the Base and the killing when reached on his Telegram account. 'I have no personal involvement in this incident and I don't know who is responsible,' he added. Previously, he had publicly endorsed the group's Ukraine operations on Telegram and said it was being overseen by members inside the country that he did not control. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Multiple requests for comment sent to a chatbot and an active email address associated with the Ukrainian cell went unanswered. 'The Base has been highly active in Ukraine since March and has conducted at least 10 arson attacks targeting infrastructure and buildings throughout the country,' said Steven Rai, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) who has been closely monitoring the Base's online activities. 'They have repeatedly threatened a variety of terrorist actions, including acts of sabotage and the assassination of Ukrainian government officials.' Rai continued: 'While we cannot confirm whether the Base was truly responsible for this recent assassination of an SBU official, this action is very much in line with what they have been threatening to do for months and shows the severity of the threat they pose.' In 2018, the Base became the subject of a relentless FBI counter-terrorism investigation that led to dozens of arrests and governments around the world designating it as a terrorist organization. Recently, the Base has doubled down on its recruitment efforts in Europe, and, with several new national cells across the continent – it has regrown its ranks inside the US and is clearly exporting its brand abroad – just as the Trump administration continues pulling FBI resources away from domestic terrorism investigations. Nazzaro, who lives the life of a semi-defected American in St Petersburg with his Russian wife and family, has for years denied any associations with Russian intelligence, going so far as to tell a Kremlin-controlled television channel that he had 'never had any contact with any Russian security services'. But the digital forensics of the group and Nazzaro's public history say otherwise: the Base's online footprints rely heavily on Russian digital infrastructure, with its recruitment email using a address – the email service owned by a Putin ally. Nazzaro has never been charged publicly in the US, but was the subject of an FBI investigation and was once called a justice department 'matter' by a US government official.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Ukraine secret service says it killed Russian agents suspected of Kyiv assassination
Ukrainian intelligence agents killed members of a Russian secret service cell wanted on suspicion of having shot dead a colonel last week, the SBU said. The SBU intelligence agency said in a statement that the operation had sought the arrest of the agents of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), who it believes were behind the killing of Colonel Ivan Voronych – also a member of the SBU security service – in Kyiv on Thursday. 'This morning a special operation was conducted, during which the members of the Russian FSB's agent cell started to resist, and therefore they were liquidated,' a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday said. Russian authorities made no immediate public comment on Sunday's operation, which mirrored past assassinations of senior Russian military officials by Ukraine during the three-year-old war – a source of embarrassment for Moscow's vast intelligence agencies. The SBU said two people – a man and a woman – were suspected of having killed Voronych in a bold daylight attack that was caught on surveillance cameras. It did not say how many suspected FSB agents had been killed on Sunday, but the SBU posted a video in which two bodies were visible. Media reports claimed that Voronych was involved in covert operations in Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine and reportedly helped organise Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region last year. According to the SBU, the alleged assassins were told by their handler to surveil their target and track his movements. They were eventually given the coordinates of a hiding place where they found a pistol with a suppressor, the SBU said. It said they had tried to 'lay low' after Thursday's killing but were tracked down by the SBU and police. The agency's remit covers security and counterintelligence, but since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine it has also played a prominent role in special operations against Moscow, including assassinations and sabotage attacks. After a series of huge attacks across Ukraine involving hundreds of exploding drones, Russia launched 60 drones overnight into Sunday, Ukraine's air force said. It said 20 of them were shot down and 20 others were jammed. On Sunday, Ukrainian authorities reported that four civilians were killed and 13 others injured in Russian attacks on the Donetsk and Kherson regions since Saturday. With Reuters, Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Bloomberg
Ukraine Says It Killed Russian Agents Who Assassinated Officer
The Security Service of Ukraine said that two people allegedly responsible for assassinating a key domestic intelligence official in a Kyiv parking lot were killed in a firefight last week. Security Service Colonel Ivan Voronych was killed on July 10 by the pair — a man and a woman — hired by Russian special services, or FSB, Ukraine's SBU said Sunday on Telegram.
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First Post
2 days ago
- Politics
- First Post
Ukraine says it killed 2 Russian agents suspected of assassinating an intelligence officer
Ukraine's Security Service said that it had killed two Russian agents suspected of killing a Ukrainian intelligence officer last week. read more CCTV footage shows the SBU officer walking down the stairs moments before he was shot in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 10. Ukrainska Pravda/Reuters As the Russia-Ukraine war continues to escalate, the Ukrainian Security Service said on Sunday that it had killed Russian special service agents suspected of killing an intelligence officer in Kyiv earlier this week. The news of the agents came days after Ukraine said that it believed Russia's Federal Security Service was responsible for the attack. On Thursday morning, SBU officer Ivan Voronych was shot dead in Kyiv in what Ukrainian authorities claimed was an apparent case of assassination. In the statement released on Sunday, the SBU maintained that the suspects, a man and a woman, tried to 'lay low' after the shooting incident. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD However, the SBU and the Ukrainian National Police officers managed to establish their whereabouts in the Kyiv region. 'As a result of covert investigative and active counterintelligence measures, the enemy's lair was discovered," the head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk, said in the statement. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has eliminated Russian intelligence agents who, on orders from the FSB, carried out the murder of an SBU Colonel in Kyiv. The special operation was led by SBU Head, Lieutenant General Vasyl Maluk. The FSB agent group was previously sent to… — Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) July 13, 2025 Why were they killed and not captured? In the same statement, Malyuk mentioned that both the Russian agents were resisting arrest, hence that measure had to be taken. 'During their arrest, they began to resist, there was an exchange of fire, and the scoundrels were eliminated,' he said. 'I want to remind you that the only prospect for the enemy on the territory of Ukraine is death!' the Ukrainian officer said in a separate video, which was apparently filmed in front of the suspect's bodies. The SBU noted that the two agents were ordered to trail their target to establish a daily routine. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD They were then directed to a safe house where they received a pistol with a silencer. It is pertinent to note that the SBU is Ukraine's main security service, responsible for both internal security and sabotage operations against Russia. Interestingly, the Ukrainian security agency was also responsible for the audacious drone attack against Russian airfields last month, under Operation Spider Web. Voronych's killing comes at a time when Russia has been escalating its attacks on Ukraine. Last week, the war-torn nation saw both the largest and the second-largest Russian drone attack on its territory as the war now enters its fourth year.
Yomiuri Shimbun
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Ukraine's Security Agency Says It Killed Russian Agents Suspected of Gunning down Its Officer
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's security agency said Sunday it tracked down and killed Russian agents suspected of shooting one of its senior officers to death in the Ukrainian capital. The Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, said in a statement that the suspected Russian agents were killed in the Kyiv region after they offered resistance to arrest. A video released by the agency showed two bodies lying on the ground. The agency said earlier that a man and a woman were suspected to be involved in Thursday's assassination of Ivan Voronych, an SBU colonel, in a bold daylight attack that was caught on surveillance cameras. Media reports claimed that Voronych was involved in covert operations in Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine and reportedly helped organize Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region last year. After a series of massive attacks across Ukraine involving hundreds of exploding drones, Russia launched 60 drones overnight, Ukraine's air force said. It said 20 of them were shot down and 20 others were jammed. The Ukrainian authorities reported that four civilians were killed and 13 others injured in Russian attacks on the Donetsk and Kherson regions since Saturday.
