Shootout in Kyiv between Ukraine's security services leaves at least three wounded

A shootout in central Kyiv between officers from Ukraine's domestic security service and military intelligence has left at least three people wounded. The incident took place on Wednesday morning in a downtown area of the capital and has drawn a sharp response from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He described the clash as disgraceful, while the domestic security service said it should not have happened.

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According to the confirmed accounts, the confrontation involved officers from the Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, and the military intelligence directorate, known as the HUR. The SBU said on Thursday that it was assisting state investigators and that the incident "definitely shouldn't have happened". Local reporting said the clash began while the SBU was searching an apartment linked to an investigation.

HUR officers then arrived and shots were fired, leaving three HUR officers injured. The SBU said separately that its officers had come under armed attack while carrying out an investigation and had used their weapons in response. The service also said that, together with the HUR, it had foiled a Russian-backed terrorist plot targeting a Russian opposition figure who had recently arrived in Ukraine.

In a video released by the SBU on Thursday, a Russian national who had been fighting for Ukraine under HUR supervision said he had been contacted by a person from Russia acting for Moscow's intelligence agency and asked to help assassinate Ukrainian defence personnel and other people. His lawyer said the recording had been made under pressure and was intended to whitewash the shootout. The incident matters because it involves two of Ukraine's most sensitive security institutions at a time of war.

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The SBU is responsible for domestic security, while the HUR handles military intelligence, and both play central roles in countering Russian operations. A public clash between them raises questions about coordination, oversight and the handling of investigations linked to alleged Russian activity. It also comes as Kyiv continues to face pressure from the wider conflict and from the need to maintain discipline inside state institutions.

The episode has already had personnel consequences. Hours after the shootout, Zelenskyy dismissed Oleh Khramov, the SBU's head of the department for the protection of state secrets. Zelenskyy said that shooting in Ukraine is permitted only against Russian occupiers in defence of the country, and that no other shootout would be regarded as acceptable.

His comments underline the political sensitivity of any armed confrontation between state bodies during wartime. The case also sits within a broader pattern of security concerns linked to Russian intelligence activity and alleged plots inside Ukraine. The SBU said the Russian national at the centre of the investigation had been arrested last month and has since been released from custody.

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