The SBU said two members of the Russian FSB security agency – a man and a woman – killed Ukrainian intelligence officer Ivan Voronych in a car park in Kyiv last week.
CCTV footage showed a man dressed in black and wearing a mask running toward the Ukrainian officer as he walked from his apartment to his car, shooting him several times.
The aftermath of a Russian drone attack in Pryluky, in the Chernihiv region of Ukraine, in June.Credit: Ukraine Emergency Service/AP
Voronych was part of an elite unit that conducted “grey zone” operations against the Russians behind enemy lines, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
While the SBU did not say how many FSB agents were involved, it released a video showing two bodies.
The latest operations follow Ukraine’s success on June 1 in sending agents into Russia over an 18-month period to target air bases from civilian trucks carrying drones.
Known as Operation Spider Web, this led to serious damage to five Russian air bases on June 1.
A still taken from footage by a source in the Ukrainian Security Service shows a Ukrainian drone striking Russian planes deep in Russia’s territory.Credit: AP
In April, a car bomb killed Russian general Yaroslav Moskalik in Moscow, in what Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described as terrorism. Russian authorities later that month arrested a 42-year-old Russian national who had previously lived in Ukraine, charging him with planting the bomb.
In a similar attack last December, an explosion from an electric scooter killed Russian general Igor Kirillov in Moscow, one day after the SBU had publicly blamed him for authorising the use of chemical weapons in the war. The SBU took responsibility for the assassination.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week welcomed “good signals” from the US about the restoration of weapon deliveries, after the Pentagon froze shipments and Trump denied knowing who had ordered the freeze.
Zelensky said on Sunday that Russian forces had attacked Ukraine with more than 1800 drones, 1200 guided aerial bombs and 83 missiles over the past week.
“The Russians are intensifying terror against cities and communities to increasingly intimidate our people,” he said.
Trump signalled last Thursday that he would make a major statement on the war on Monday, and he confirmed the US would send weapons to Europe so they could be supplied to Ukraine and paid for by European NATO members.
“I think I’ll have a major statement to make on Russia on Monday,” he told NBC.
“I’m disappointed in Russia, but we’ll see what happens over the next couple of weeks.”
Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, retired general Keith Kellogg, is due to arrive in Kyiv on Monday.
With Reuters
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