Security Service of Ukraine
Encyclopedia
The Security Service of Ukraine , or SBU, is Ukraine
's special purpose law enforcement agency and main government security agency
in a sphere of counterintelligence activity and combating terrorism.
Other duties include fight against crimes that endanger the peace and security of mankind, terrorism, corruption, and organized criminal activities in the sphere of management and economy, as well as other unlawful acts immediately threatening Ukraine's vital interests.
The SBU uncovered seven spies and 16 special service agents in 2009.
's Branch of the Soviet KGB
, keeping the majority of its 1990s personnel. Since 1992, the agency has been competing in intelligence
functions with the intelligence branch of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense
. Despite this, a former Military Intelligence Chief and career GRU
technological espionage expert, Ihor Smeshko, served as an SBU chief until 2005.
In 2004, the SBU's Intelligence Department was reorganized into an independent agency called Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine
. It is responsible for all kinds of intelligence as well as for external security. As of 2004, the exact functions of the new service, and respective responsibilities of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine
were not regulated yet.
On November 7, 2005 the President of Ukraine created the Ukraine State Service of special communications and protection of information, also known as Derzhspetszvyazok (StateSpecCom) in place of one of the departments of SBU and making it an autonomous agency.
The SBU subsumed the Directorate of State Protection of Ukraine , the personal protection agency for the most senior government officials, which was the former Ninth Directorate of the Ukrainian KGB.
that later was reformed into the Soviet Security Service. Directed from Petrograd at first the commission had several regional departments (Gubcheks) that were officially titled Provincial Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage and were generally known as the Kiev Cheka
, Kharkov Cheka, Odessa Cheka, etc. and were associated with the Red Terror
.
With the creation of the Soviet Union
all the Cheka
departments were consolidated into the State Political Directorate
of NKVD
that consisted of the respective republican ministries. The republican security services were finally integrated into the Ministry of Internal Affairs of USSR on July 10, 1934 through March 13, 1954. At first it was named as the Chief Directorate of the State Security for NKVD
, but was later reorganised during World War II
and the death of Stalin.
Ministry of State Security of UkrSSR
KGB
of UkrSSR Council of Ministers
SBU (Security Service of Ukraine)
agent in President Leonid Kuchma
's bodyguard
team. Mel'nychenko was the central figure of the Cassette Scandal
(2000) — one of the main events in Ukraine's post-independence history. SBU became involved in the case when Mel'nychenko accused Leonid Derkach, SBU Chief at the time, of several crimes, e.g. of clandestine relations with Russian mafia
leader Semyon Mogilevich. However, the UDO was subsumed into the SBU after the scandal, so Mel'nychenko himself has never been an SBU agent.
Later, SBU played a significant role in the investigation
of the Georgiy Gongadze
murder case, the crime that caused the Cassette Scandal
itself.
In 2004, General
Valeriy Kravchenko, SBU's intelligence representative in Germany
, publicly accused his agency of political involvement, including overseas spying on Ukrainian opposition
politicians and German TV journalists. He was fired without returning home. After a half-year of hiding in Germany, Kravchenko has returned to Ukraine and surrendered in October 2004 (an investigation is underway).
Later, the agency commanders became involved in the scandal around the poison
ing of Viktor Yushchenko
—a main candidate in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Yushchenko felt unwell soon after supper with SBU Chief Ihor Smeshko, at the home of Smeshko's first deputy. However, neither the politician himself nor the investigators have ever directly accused these officers. It is also important to note that the Personal Protection department has been officially responsible for Yushchenko's personal security since he became a candidate. During the Orange Revolution
, several SBU veterans and cadet
s publicly supported him as president-elect, while the agency as a whole remained neutral.
In 2005, soon after the elections, sacked SBU Chief Smeshko and other intelligence agents raised their own version of the revolution events. According to that version, they have prevented militsiya
from violent oppression of the protests, contradicting the orders of President Kuchma and threatening militsiya with armed involvement of SBU's special forces
units. This story was first described by the American journalist K.J.Chivers of New York Times and has never been supported documentally or legally.
Analysts agree that SBU is relatively free of political involvement compared to the Ukrainian militsiya, which is considered to be mainly responsible for persecution of opposition
activists and ignoring crimes against them. However, the SBU is widely suspected of illegal surveillance
and eavesdropping
of offices and phones.
An episode of human rights
abuse by SBU happened during the case of serial killer
Anatoly Onoprienko
. Yuriy Mozola, an initial suspect in the investigation, died in SBU custody in Lviv
as a result of torture
. Several agents were convicted in the case.
The SBU remains a political controversial subject in Ukrainian politics.
Current Security Service of Ukraine Head Valeriy Khoroshkovsky
is also owner of U.A. Inter Media Group which owns mayor shares in various Ukrainian TV channels a.o. Inter TV. For Khoroshkovsliy voted 238 members of the Verkhovna Rada
, however the head of the parliamentary committee for the National Security and Defense Anatoliy Hrytsenko
stated that the committee accepted the decision to recommend Verkhovna Rada
to deny the candidature of Khoroshkovskiy on the post of the chairman of Security Service of Ukraine.
As Khoroshkovskiy promised SBU under his leadership does what it supposed to do... to protect the president rather than the interests of Ukraine. On July 26, 2010 SBU arrested a internet blogger, however, a silly warrant for his arrest brought only the next day. SBU accused the blogger in threatening the President of Ukraine
and after a short discussion let him go. The threat was perceived in blogger's statement-curse "Let the thunder strike Yanukovych!". However, SBU showed a rather passive reaction on the statements of the Russian State official who continues to claim that Crimea
and Sevastopol
belongs to the Russian Federation.
Protest group FEMEN
has claimed that after the early 2010 election
of President Viktor Yanukovych
the SBU has attempted to intimidate the FEMEN activists.
Recently Khoroshkovskiy made a few misses as some of the operations of the spec-service has failed. For example, the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv Borys Gudziak after the unwelcome visit not only did not break, but was so loud in his complaints that forced Khoroshkovskiy to apologize. Later the head of the Kiev Bureau of Konrad Adenauer Foundation
Nico Lange was detained for a short while and was released only after he was vouched by several high-ranking officials from the German Chancellery
. The Security Service asked to formulate that incident as a simple misunderstanding.
Khoroshkovskiy being the Chairman of SBU got rid of the main competition of Ukrainian TV-giant Inter
, the owner of which officially is his wife Olena Khoroshkovskiy, in the face of TVi
and Channel 5.
Konrad Shuller from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(Germany) also believes that the most important string of his power lies through the group RosUkrEnergo
. The President's spokesman Hanna German in the interview to this newspaper did not argue that Dmytro Firtash
was one of the sponsors of the Presidential Party of Regions
, with the help of which Khoroshkovskiy was appointed to the position of the State Security chairman. Khoroshkovskiy in his turn argued any connections to RosUkrEnergo
. However it is a fact that Firtash possesses certain privileges in Inter. Mr. Shuller also stated that SBU acts in direct association with the RosUkrEnergo
arresting their main opponents (see RosUkrEnergo) in order to recover their invested money in the recent presidential campaign.
Khoroshkovskiy did not wish to give an interview to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, however Mr.Shuller at the end of his article posted an interesting quote from one of his other interviews:
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
's special purpose law enforcement agency and main government security agency
Security agency
A security agency is a governmental organization which conducts intelligence activities for the internal security of a nation. They are the domestic cousins of foreign intelligence agencies...
in a sphere of counterintelligence activity and combating terrorism.
Duties and Responsibilities
The Security Service of Ukraine is vested, within its competence defined by law, with the protection of national sovereignty, constitutional order, territorial integrity, economical, scientific, technical, and defense potential of Ukraine, legal interests of the state, and civil rights, from intelligence and subversion activities of foreign special services and from unlawful interference attempted by certain organizations, groups and individuals, as well with ensuring the protection of state secrets.Other duties include fight against crimes that endanger the peace and security of mankind, terrorism, corruption, and organized criminal activities in the sphere of management and economy, as well as other unlawful acts immediately threatening Ukraine's vital interests.
The SBU uncovered seven spies and 16 special service agents in 2009.
Structure
- Central Apparatus (consists of some 25 departments)
- Main Directorate on Corruption and Organized Crime Counteraction
- Regional Departments (26 departments)
- Special Department
- Anti-Terrorist Center cooperates with numerous ministries and other state agencies such as the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Emergencies, State Border Guard Service, and others.
- Educational Institutions
- National Academy of Security Service of Ukraine
- Institute in preparation of Service Personnel at the National Law Academy of Yaroslav the Wise.
- Others
- State Archives of SBU
Restructuring
The SBU is a successor of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist RepublicUkrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...
's Branch of the Soviet KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, keeping the majority of its 1990s personnel. Since 1992, the agency has been competing in intelligence
Intelligence (information gathering)
Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...
functions with the intelligence branch of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense
Chief directorate of intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine
The Chief directorate of intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine or HUR , is Ukraine's military intelligence service. It is a subdivision of the country's Defence Ministry and is under direct subordination to the Ministry of Defense, not the General Staff...
. Despite this, a former Military Intelligence Chief and career GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
technological espionage expert, Ihor Smeshko, served as an SBU chief until 2005.
In 2004, the SBU's Intelligence Department was reorganized into an independent agency called Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine
Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine
The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine is an independent state body, which carries out its intelligence activities in political, economic, military and technical, scientific and technical, information and ecological spheres and subordinates directly to the President of Ukraine.The...
. It is responsible for all kinds of intelligence as well as for external security. As of 2004, the exact functions of the new service, and respective responsibilities of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine
Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine
The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine is an independent state body, which carries out its intelligence activities in political, economic, military and technical, scientific and technical, information and ecological spheres and subordinates directly to the President of Ukraine.The...
were not regulated yet.
On November 7, 2005 the President of Ukraine created the Ukraine State Service of special communications and protection of information, also known as Derzhspetszvyazok (StateSpecCom) in place of one of the departments of SBU and making it an autonomous agency.
The SBU subsumed the Directorate of State Protection of Ukraine , the personal protection agency for the most senior government officials, which was the former Ninth Directorate of the Ukrainian KGB.
Directors of The SBU
Prior to 1954 there were no known security services in Ukraine (at least nominally). With the fall of the Russian Empire the Sovnarkom decided to create an Extraordinary CommissionCheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
that later was reformed into the Soviet Security Service. Directed from Petrograd at first the commission had several regional departments (Gubcheks) that were officially titled Provincial Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage and were generally known as the Kiev Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
, Kharkov Cheka, Odessa Cheka, etc. and were associated with the Red Terror
Red Terror
The Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and executions conducted by the Bolshevik government. In Soviet historiography, the Red Terror is described as having been officially announced on September 2, 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ended about October 1918...
.
With the creation of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
all the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
departments were consolidated into the State Political Directorate
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
of NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
that consisted of the respective republican ministries. The republican security services were finally integrated into the Ministry of Internal Affairs of USSR on July 10, 1934 through March 13, 1954. At first it was named as the Chief Directorate of the State Security for NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
, but was later reorganised during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the death of Stalin.
Ministry of State Security of UkrSSR
- Sergei Savchenko, 1943–1949
- Nikolai Kovalchuk, 1949–1952
- Pyotr Ivashutin, 1952–1953
KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
of UkrSSR Council of Ministers
- Vitaliy Fedotovych Nykytchenko, April 6, 1954 - July 16, 1970
- Vitaliy Vasyliovych Fedorchuk, July 18, 1970 - May 26, 1982
- Stepan Mukha, May 26, 1982–1987
- Nikolai Mikhailovich GolushkoNikolai GolushkoNikolai Mikhailovich Golushko is a former minister and KGB officer.In 1959 he graduated from the law faculty of Tomsk university. He worked in KGB from 1963 on .From 1987 to 1991 Golushko was the chairman of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR.From 1992 deputy and...
, 1987 - September 20, 1991
SBU (Security Service of Ukraine)
-
- Nikolai Mikhailovich GolushkoNikolai GolushkoNikolai Mikhailovich Golushko is a former minister and KGB officer.In 1959 he graduated from the law faculty of Tomsk university. He worked in KGB from 1963 on .From 1987 to 1991 Golushko was the chairman of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR.From 1992 deputy and...
, September 20, 1991 - November 6, 1991
- Nikolai Mikhailovich Golushko
- Yevhen Kyrylovych MarchukYevhen MarchukYevhen K. Marchuk , born on January 28, 1941, is a Ukrainian statesman and politician. During his career, Marchuk was prime minister of Ukraine, presidential candidate, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and Defense Minister of Ukraine. Marchuk is affiliated with the Ukrainian...
, November 6, 1991 - July 12, 1994 - Valeriy Vasyliovych Malikov, July 12, 1994 - July 3, 1995
- Volodymyr Ivanovych Radchenko, July 3, 1995 - April 22, 1998
- Leonid Vasyliovych Derkach, April 22, 1998 - February 10, 2001
- Volodymyr Ivanovych Radchenko, February 10, 2001 - September 2, 2003
- Ihor Petrovych Smeshko, September 4, 2003 - February 4, 2005
- Oleksandr Valentynovych TurchynovOleksandr TurchynovOleksandr Valentynovych Turchynov is a Ukrainian politician, a screenwriter, a Doctor of Economic Studies. He also was acting Prime Minister after former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's government was dismissed on March 3, 2010...
, February 4, 2005 - September 8, 2005 - Ihor Vasylovych DrizhchanyIhor DrizhchanyIhor Drizhchany is a Ukrainian statesman, currentlythe Head of the Security Service of Ukraine.His career began in 1983, in the Office of Prosecution of the Ukrainian SSR...
, September 8, 2005 - December 22, 2006- Valentyn Oleksandrovych Nalyvaichenko December 22, 2006 - March 6, 2009
- Valentyn Oleksandrovych Nalyvaichenko, March 6, 2009 - March 11, 2010
- Valeriy Ivanovych KhoroshkovskyValeriy KhoroshkovskyValeriy Ivanovych Khoroshkovsky is a Ukrainian businessman, head of the Security Service of Ukraine and owner of U.A. Inter Media Group which owns majority shares in various Ukrainian TV channels such as Inter TV...
, March 11, 2010 - present
SBU's transgression of the law
SBU's State Directorate of Personal Protection is known for its former Major Mykola Mel'nychenko, the communications protectionCommunications protection
In telecommunications, communications protection is the application of communications security measures to telecommunications systems in order to: deny unauthorized access to sensitive unclassified information of value, prevent disruption of telecommunications services, or ensure the...
agent in President Leonid Kuchma
Leonid Kuchma
Leonid Danylovych Kuchma was the second President of independent Ukraine from 19 July 1994, to 23 January 2005. Kuchma took office after winning the 1994 presidential election against his rival, incumbent Leonid Kravchuk...
's bodyguard
Bodyguard
A bodyguard is a type of security operative or government agent who protects a person—usually a famous, wealthy, or politically important figure—from assault, kidnapping, assassination, stalking, loss of confidential information, terrorist attack or other threats.Most important public figures such...
team. Mel'nychenko was the central figure of the Cassette Scandal
Cassette Scandal
The Cassette Scandal , also known as "Tapegate" and "Kuchmagate", erupting in 2000, was one of the main political events in Ukraine's post-independence history...
(2000) — one of the main events in Ukraine's post-independence history. SBU became involved in the case when Mel'nychenko accused Leonid Derkach, SBU Chief at the time, of several crimes, e.g. of clandestine relations with Russian mafia
Russian Mafia
The Russian Mafia is a name applied to organized crime syndicates in Russia and Ukraine. The mafia in various countries take the name of the country, as for example the Ukrainian mafia....
leader Semyon Mogilevich. However, the UDO was subsumed into the SBU after the scandal, so Mel'nychenko himself has never been an SBU agent.
Later, SBU played a significant role in the investigation
Criminal procedure
Criminal procedure refers to the legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated criminal law.-Basic rights:Currently, in many countries with a democratic system and the rule of law, criminal procedure puts the burden of proof on the prosecution – that is, it is up to the...
of the Georgiy Gongadze
Georgiy R. Gongadze
Georgiy Ruslanovich Gongadze was a Ukrainian journalist of Georgian origin who was kidnapped and murdered in 2000.The circumstances of his death became a national scandal and a focus for protests against the government of the then President, Leonid Kuchma...
murder case, the crime that caused the Cassette Scandal
Cassette Scandal
The Cassette Scandal , also known as "Tapegate" and "Kuchmagate", erupting in 2000, was one of the main political events in Ukraine's post-independence history...
itself.
In 2004, General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
Valeriy Kravchenko, SBU's intelligence representative in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, publicly accused his agency of political involvement, including overseas spying on Ukrainian opposition
Opposition (politics)
In politics, the opposition comprises one or more political parties or other organized groups that are opposed to the government , party or group in political control of a city, region, state or country...
politicians and German TV journalists. He was fired without returning home. After a half-year of hiding in Germany, Kravchenko has returned to Ukraine and surrendered in October 2004 (an investigation is underway).
Later, the agency commanders became involved in the scandal around the poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
ing of Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
—a main candidate in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Yushchenko felt unwell soon after supper with SBU Chief Ihor Smeshko, at the home of Smeshko's first deputy. However, neither the politician himself nor the investigators have ever directly accused these officers. It is also important to note that the Personal Protection department has been officially responsible for Yushchenko's personal security since he became a candidate. During the Orange Revolution
Orange Revolution
The Orange Revolution was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate aftermath of the run-off vote of the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election which was claimed to be marred by massive corruption, voter...
, several SBU veterans and cadet
Cadet
A cadet is a trainee to become an officer in the military, often a person who is a junior trainee. The term comes from the term "cadet" for younger sons of a noble family.- Military context :...
s publicly supported him as president-elect, while the agency as a whole remained neutral.
In 2005, soon after the elections, sacked SBU Chief Smeshko and other intelligence agents raised their own version of the revolution events. According to that version, they have prevented militsiya
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine is the main body in the system of central bodies of exeecutive power that provides formation and realization of the state policy in the sphere of protection the rights and liberties of citizens, unlawful acts against the interest of society and state,...
from violent oppression of the protests, contradicting the orders of President Kuchma and threatening militsiya with armed involvement of SBU's special forces
Special forces
Special forces, or special operations forces are terms used to describe elite military tactical teams trained to perform high-risk dangerous missions that conventional units cannot perform...
units. This story was first described by the American journalist K.J.Chivers of New York Times and has never been supported documentally or legally.
Analysts agree that SBU is relatively free of political involvement compared to the Ukrainian militsiya, which is considered to be mainly responsible for persecution of opposition
Opposition (politics)
In politics, the opposition comprises one or more political parties or other organized groups that are opposed to the government , party or group in political control of a city, region, state or country...
activists and ignoring crimes against them. However, the SBU is widely suspected of illegal surveillance
Surveillance
Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...
and eavesdropping
Eavesdropping
Eavesdropping is the act of secretly listening to the private conversation of others without their consent, as defined by Black's Law Dictionary...
of offices and phones.
An episode of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
abuse by SBU happened during the case of serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
Anatoly Onoprienko
Anatoly Onoprienko
Anatoly Yuriyovych Onoprienko is a Ukrainian serial killer. He is also known by the nicknames "The Beast of Ukraine", "The Terminator" and "Citizen O"...
. Yuriy Mozola, an initial suspect in the investigation, died in SBU custody in Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
as a result of torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
. Several agents were convicted in the case.
The SBU remains a political controversial subject in Ukrainian politics.
Current Security Service of Ukraine Head Valeriy Khoroshkovsky
Valeriy Khoroshkovsky
Valeriy Ivanovych Khoroshkovsky is a Ukrainian businessman, head of the Security Service of Ukraine and owner of U.A. Inter Media Group which owns majority shares in various Ukrainian TV channels such as Inter TV...
is also owner of U.A. Inter Media Group which owns mayor shares in various Ukrainian TV channels a.o. Inter TV. For Khoroshkovsliy voted 238 members of the Verkhovna Rada
Verkhovna Rada
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is Ukraine's parliament. The Verkhovna Rada is a unicameral parliament composed of 450 deputies, which is presided over by a chairman...
, however the head of the parliamentary committee for the National Security and Defense Anatoliy Hrytsenko
Anatoliy Hrytsenko
Anatoliy Stepanovych Hrytsenko is a former Minister of Defence of Ukraine.Political affiliation: Member of Our Ukraine and leader of the All-Ukrainian Public Organization Civil Position and Civil Position....
stated that the committee accepted the decision to recommend Verkhovna Rada
Verkhovna Rada
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is Ukraine's parliament. The Verkhovna Rada is a unicameral parliament composed of 450 deputies, which is presided over by a chairman...
to deny the candidature of Khoroshkovskiy on the post of the chairman of Security Service of Ukraine.
As Khoroshkovskiy promised SBU under his leadership does what it supposed to do... to protect the president rather than the interests of Ukraine. On July 26, 2010 SBU arrested a internet blogger, however, a silly warrant for his arrest brought only the next day. SBU accused the blogger in threatening the President of Ukraine
President of Ukraine
Prior to the formation of the modern Ukrainian presidency, the previous Ukrainian head of state office was officially established in exile by Andriy Livytskyi. At first the de facto leader of nation was the president of the Central Rada at early years of the Ukrainian People's Republic, while the...
and after a short discussion let him go. The threat was perceived in blogger's statement-curse "Let the thunder strike Yanukovych!". However, SBU showed a rather passive reaction on the statements of the Russian State official who continues to claim that Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
and Sevastopol
Sevastopol
Sevastopol is a city on rights of administrative division of Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea peninsula. It has a population of 342,451 . Sevastopol is the second largest port in Ukraine, after the Port of Odessa....
belongs to the Russian Federation.
Protest group FEMEN
FEMEN
FEMEN is a Ukrainian protest group based in Kiev, founded in 2008. The organisation became internationally known for organizing topless protests against sex tourists, international marriage agencies, sexism and other social, national and international ills...
has claimed that after the early 2010 election
Ukrainian presidential election, 2010
The Ukrainian presidential election of 2010 is Ukraine's fifth presidential election since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The first round was held on January 17, 2010...
of President Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a Ukrainian politician who has been the President of Ukraine since February 2010.Yanukovych served as the Governor of Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002...
the SBU has attempted to intimidate the FEMEN activists.
SBU and Khoroshkovskiy
Article of Konrad Shuller on July 19, 2010Recently Khoroshkovskiy made a few misses as some of the operations of the spec-service has failed. For example, the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv Borys Gudziak after the unwelcome visit not only did not break, but was so loud in his complaints that forced Khoroshkovskiy to apologize. Later the head of the Kiev Bureau of Konrad Adenauer Foundation
Konrad Adenauer Foundation
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is a German political party foundation associated with the centre-right Christian Democratic Union . The foundation's headquarters are located in Saint Augustine and Berlin. Globally, the KAS has 78 offices and runs programs in over 100 countries...
Nico Lange was detained for a short while and was released only after he was vouched by several high-ranking officials from the German Chancellery
German Chancellery
The German Chancellery is a federal agency serving the executive office of the Chancellor, the head of the German federal government. The chief of the Chancellery holds the rank of either a Secretary of State or a Federal Minister ...
. The Security Service asked to formulate that incident as a simple misunderstanding.
Khoroshkovskiy being the Chairman of SBU got rid of the main competition of Ukrainian TV-giant Inter
Inter (TV channel)
Inter is the major TV channel in Ukraine. Based on it later was formed the whole new media group with variety of different other channels. Inter is among the top-rated networks in Ukraine, competing with such as 1+1 and Pershyi Natsionalnyi channels...
, the owner of which officially is his wife Olena Khoroshkovskiy, in the face of TVi
TVI (channel)
-History:TVI launched on March 17, 2008. The station covers over 65% of households in Ukraine. The target audience are people from 18 to 54 years old in cities with...
and Channel 5.
Konrad Shuller from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
(Germany) also believes that the most important string of his power lies through the group RosUkrEnergo
RosUkrEnergo
RosUkrEnergo is a Swiss-registered venture company that transports natural gas from Turkmenistan to East European countries. 50% of the company is owned by Gazprom, through its daughter Swiss-registered Rosgas Holding A.G., and another 50% by Swiss-registered private company Centragas Holding A.G.,...
. The President's spokesman Hanna German in the interview to this newspaper did not argue that Dmytro Firtash
Dmytro Firtash
Dmytro Firtash is a Ukrainian businessman and billionaire .Firtash first steps in business where in in the food industry in the early 1990s before moving into gas trading....
was one of the sponsors of the Presidential Party of Regions
Party of Regions
The Party of Regions is an Ukrainian political party created on October 26, 1997 just prior to the 1998 Ukrainian parliamentary elections under the name of Party of Regional Revival of Ukraine. It was reformed later in 2001 when the party united with several others...
, with the help of which Khoroshkovskiy was appointed to the position of the State Security chairman. Khoroshkovskiy in his turn argued any connections to RosUkrEnergo
RosUkrEnergo
RosUkrEnergo is a Swiss-registered venture company that transports natural gas from Turkmenistan to East European countries. 50% of the company is owned by Gazprom, through its daughter Swiss-registered Rosgas Holding A.G., and another 50% by Swiss-registered private company Centragas Holding A.G.,...
. However it is a fact that Firtash possesses certain privileges in Inter. Mr. Shuller also stated that SBU acts in direct association with the RosUkrEnergo
RosUkrEnergo
RosUkrEnergo is a Swiss-registered venture company that transports natural gas from Turkmenistan to East European countries. 50% of the company is owned by Gazprom, through its daughter Swiss-registered Rosgas Holding A.G., and another 50% by Swiss-registered private company Centragas Holding A.G.,...
arresting their main opponents (see RosUkrEnergo) in order to recover their invested money in the recent presidential campaign.
Khoroshkovskiy did not wish to give an interview to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, however Mr.Shuller at the end of his article posted an interesting quote from one of his other interviews: