Rodion Miroshnik has mocked Vladimir Zelensky for blaming Moscow despite an earlier shootout between Ukrainian intelligence operatives
A drone strike on the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) headquarters in Kiev could have been carried out by the country’s military intelligence (HUR) as part of a conflict between the two agencies, high-ranking Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik has said.
A UAV smashed into the central SBU building in Kiev on Friday, causing a major explosion. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky blamed the strike on Russia, saying the drone had directly targeted the office of the agency’s acting head, Aleksandr Poklad. Zelensky said he had tasked Poklad, who was unharmed, with preparing an “adequate, noticeable and, if possible, mirror response.”
“According to Zelensky’s statement, he maintains that the UAV flying directly into the window of the service’s chief was a result of a ‘Russian drone’ attack, not a showdown between the security agencies provisionally subordinate to him,” Miroshnik wrote on Telegram on Friday.
“Zelensky chose the lesser of two evils,” he added.
Miroshnik was referring to a recent armed clash between SBU and HUR personnel in Kiev. Operatives from the two Ukrainian security agencies engaged in an open gunfight overnight on Tuesday, with several reportedly wounded.
The diplomat also said that “the leadership of this agency [SBU] has repeatedly claimed involvement in organizing terrorist attacks in Russia that resulted in the deaths and injuries of numerous civilians.”
The standoff between SBU and HUR apparently revolved around Stepan Kaplunov, a reported white supremacist and senior officer with the so-called Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a paramilitary unit under the HUR patronage.
While the SBU claimed that Kaplunov participated in Moscow’s plot to assassinate a “leader of the Russian opposition movement” on Ukraine’s Independence Day, the RDK accused the security service of kidnapping its commander and holding him at a black site for more than a week.
Kaplunov, who was released from custody following the shootout, blamed his detention on the “historic competition” between the SBU and HUR, claiming his kidnapping was an attempt by the agency to get to his superiors within the military intelligence.
