KYIV — Ukrainian safety brokers had been chargeable for killing a Ukrainian banker who reportedly served as an important data conduit and negotiator with Russia within the run-up to final 12 months’s invasion, a high intelligence official mentioned.
The feedback, made by Basic Kyrylo Budanov in an interview with RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, add additional to the thriller surrounding the killing of Denys Kiryeyev, who was reportedly honored for his work 4 months after his loss of life.
Budanov, who heads Ukraine’s army intelligence company, mentioned “he believes the info” and that Kiryeyev, who was a full-time worker of the company, was killed by the Safety Service of Ukraine, extensively often called the SBU. Budanov didn’t say how lengthy Kiryeyev had labored for the company.
The brokers killed Kiryeyev in an SBU automotive as they “carried out an operation” in opposition to him, he mentioned.
“It is a indisputable fact that he was killed in that automotive by these operatives,” Budanov, whose company is named the GUR, mentioned in a January 21 telephone interview.
Requested particularly if SBU brokers killed “a Ukrainian hero,” he instructed RFE/RL: “That is completely true.”
Budanov’s feedback got here three days after a Wall Avenue Journal (WSJ) story that examined the work of Kiryeyev, who had been employed for a number of Western banks and had developed ties with highly effective businessmen within the japanese Ukrainian area of Donetsk who had sturdy connections to Russia.
Kiryeyev’s physique was discovered on a Kyiv sidewalk on March 5, 12 days after Russia launched its invasion.
In line with WSJ, Kiryeyev was investigated by the SBU on suspicion of passing data to Russian officers.
The SBU declined to reply questions from RFE/RL relating to Budanov’s assertions. Ukraine’s primary regulation enforcement company, the State Bureau of Investigation, declined to touch upon Budanov’s assertion that it had opened a legal probe of the killing.
Within the interview, Budanov mentioned that on the day of Kiryeyev’s loss of life he had been summoned for a gathering with SBU officers. He was accompanied by two GUR bodyguards, Budanov mentioned, which was commonplace protocol.
On their option to the SBU headquarters, he mentioned, the automotive Kiryeyev and his escorts had been using in was stopped by armed brokers from the SBU’s tactical unit, often called Alfa.
“Roughly 200 meters from the SBU’s primary constructing, a bus pulled out, that’s, broke into oncoming site visitors,” he mentioned. “Alfa brokers ran out shouting ‘SBU!’ Brokers burst out, saying they had been from the SBU.”
“Kiryeyev instructed everybody to cease,” Budanov mentioned. “Then he was transferred to a minibus that went to not the central constructing however a number of blocks away. Then what occurred is what occurred. His physique fell out of that van. These are the info. Why did not they go to the SBU constructing? Let the investigation reply this query.”
Budanov confirmed that Kiryeyev had participated in high-level talks with Russian officers held in Belarus simply 4 days after the invasion, and he mentioned that the day earlier than his loss of life Kiryeyev was slated to journey by practice once more to Belarus for extra talks — at Budanov’s directive.
“What was the aim? I despatched him there. And the primary time and the second time, he needed to get on the practice proper after he was supposed to go to the SBU,” Budanov mentioned. “The principle activity we set for him was to lengthen the [negotiating] course of to be able to purchase time. As a result of Mr. Kiryeyev personally knew two folks from the negotiation course of who represented the Russian facet.”
In an interview with the Baltic information company Delfi on January 19, Mykhaylo Podolyak, a high adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has mentioned Kiryeyev was killed as a consequence of a scarcity of coordination between the SBU and Budanov’s company.
Requested if he agreed with Podolyak’s evaluation, Budanov mentioned: “I imagine that the matter is way deeper. Nonetheless, I’ll maintain my opinion to myself. Let’s consider solely the info.”
In feedback to RFE/RL, Fedir Venislavskiy, a parliamentary lawmaker and member of Zelenskiy’s political faction, recommended that within the aftermath of the Russian invasion there had been a number of examples of “pleasant hearth” involving rival Ukrainian safety companies.
“Sadly, such ‘pleasant’ hearth killed folks from numerous parts of the safety and protection sector,” he mentioned.
One other lawmaker, Roman Kostenko, who serves in a unique political faction, mentioned the SBU should clarify what precisely occurred and why. And even when Kiryeyev had been a Russian agent, he ought to have been prosecuted in Ukrainian courts.
“We should always not flip into the Russian Federation, the place sentences are handed down someplace on the road or on the curbs,” he instructed RFE/RL.
In July, Zelenskiy fired his childhood pal and head of the SBU, Ivan Bakanov. The Ukrainian chief additionally sacked dozens of generals and different high officers within the SBU for his or her alleged position in permitting the Russian invasion to go ahead.
Zelenskiy additionally gave a posthumous honor to Kiryeyev for “distinctive responsibility in protection of state sovereignty and state safety,” in accordance with WSJ, and was buried with army honors in a Kyiv cemetery.
RFE/RL was unable to verify Kiryeyev’s posthumous honor.
