Ukraine’s Security Service, SBU, said on Sunday they killed two Russian special agents suspected of shooting a Ukrainian intelligence officer. The suspects were killed in Kyiv after putting up resistance to arrest.
The agency said SBU colonel Ivan Voronych was shot several times in Kyiv in a bold daylight on Thursday. According to media reports, Voronych was involved in secret operations in Russian-held Ukrainian territories and helped organize Ukrainian army’s surprise incursion into Russia’s border Kursk region last August.
On Sunday, Ukraine's national police said the two agents killed were "citizens of a foreign country", without giving any further details. Moscow has not commented on the incident. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the SBU has carried out a large number of sabotage attacks and assignation attempts deep in Russia. In December 2024, the SBU agents assassinated high-ranking Russian general Igor Kirillov. Another Russian general, Yaroslav Moskalik was killed in a car bomb attack in Moscow in April.
The Russian agents’ deaths came after Russia launched record high number of air strikes involving 26 cruise missiles and 597 attack drones, half of which were Iranian-made Shaheed kamikaze drones. On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the country faced its largest aerial attack ever. June marked the highest monthly civilian casualties in Ukraine since the start of the full-fledged war in 2022.
