KYIV: As Moscow appeared prepared to intensify military operations, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fired the director of the internal security service and the state prosecutor, citing hundreds of cases of alleged treason and collaboration with Russia.
In Russian-occupied territory, Zelenskiy said that over 60 members of the SBU security service and prosecutor’s office were working against Ukraine, and that 651 treason and collaboration charges had been filed against law enforcement personnel.
Ivan Bakanov, the security service’s director, and Iryna Venediktova, the general prosecutor who oversaw efforts to file charges against Russian war criminals, both of their dismissals, as well as the sheer volume of treason cases, on Sunday highlight the enormous challenge posed by Russian infiltration as Kyiv battles Moscow in what it claims is a battle for survival.Such a wide range of offences against the state’s fundamental national security principles “raise extremely significant problems for the responsible officials,” Zelenskiy said. “An appropriate response will be given to each of these queries.
Zelenskiy brought up the recent treason arrest of the former head of the SBU in charge of the Crimea region—the peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014 but that Kyiv and the West still consider to be Ukrainian territory—in his nightly address to the country.Zelenskiy said that his choice to fire the chief security official at the beginning of the invasion was vindicated.
His criminal history is well-documented.
