Ukraine’s security service has confirmed that two Russian operatives accused of killing a top Ukrainian intelligence officer have been tracked down and killed. The suspects were involved in the recent daylight assassination of Colonel Ivan Voronych, a senior member of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), who was gunned down on Thursday in Kyiv.
The SBU said its agents located the suspects—a man and a woman—on Sunday morning in the Kyiv region. During the operation to arrest them, the pair reportedly resisted, leading to a shootout that resulted in their deaths. Authorities believe the operatives were sent by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) to carry out the attack.
Surveillance footage from the scene of Voronych’s murder shows a man ambushing him outside a residential building and shooting him multiple times as he approached a parked vehicle. The colonel died instantly from his injuries. He had reportedly been involved in covert missions inside Russian-occupied areas and helped plan a Ukrainian operation into Russia’s Kursk region last year.
According to investigators, the killers were instructed to follow Voronych’s movements, collect a silenced pistol from a hidden location, and carry out the hit. The SBU said the agents were part of a combat group embedded in Ukraine in advance for the mission.
Vasyl Malyuk, the SBU chief and leader of the special operation, confirmed the raid’s outcome and described the agents as combatants who “resisted fiercely” before being eliminated. He thanked the National Police for assisting in the operation and stressed that combating Russian espionage remains a top priority. Malyuk also claimed the SBU stops 85% of attempted Russian crimes in Ukraine.
Since the full-scale war began in February 2022, both Russia and Ukraine have carried out high-profile assassinations and targeted operations within each other’s territories.
