On 10 July, a man was gunned down in broad daylight in Kyiv. He was Colonel Ivan Voronych, a senior Ukrainian intelligence officer and veteran of covert special operations. His death did not go unpunished. Last Sunday, Kyiv’s SBU intelligence service said it had executed two agents of Russia’s FSB security service in connection with the killing.

Such tit-for-tat operations may seem, on the face of it, to be nothing new. Assassinations have long proven merely one front in the wider war, with Ukraine netting such high-profile targets as the Russian generals Igor Kirillov and Yaroslav Moskalik. Demonstrating no lack of ambition, Ukraine’s spies claim to have a hit-list for further attacks.

While covert operations may have constituted an area of success for Kyiv, the loss of a man of Voronych’s standing suggests the tide may now be turning in Moscow’s favor. “I want to believe that it has begun,” crowed Kremlin propagandist Alexander Kots, “the enemy has to be afraid on his own territory”.

So what is behind the Kremlin’s success? Its spooks are likely still smarting from being outfoxed by Operation Spiderweb, a covert drone attack conducted on their own land and so meticulously plotted over 18 months that the Ukrainians even released the footage afterwards. Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin now wishes to show it too can infiltrate the enemy.

Voronych’s death may also be the result of earlier efforts. Back in 2023, Moscow set up the Department of Special Tasks, a spy unit bringing together powers and personnel from across Russia’s intelligence services and dedicated to recruiting foreign agents and carrying out murders and sabotage. The Department of Special Tasks is staffed by some of the oldest hands in Russian intelligence and they do not require Putin’s approval for specific operations. With Moscow’s spies needing to prove their value after the intelligence failures of the initial invasion, expect them to compete with one another and push their already broad limits, in much the same way as Ukraine’s rival SBU and GRU intelligence agencies jostle for glory.

Western security officials indicate that the Department’s activity dropped when Donald Trump became US President, as the Kremlin tried to establish friendly relations with the new administration. With US-Russia relations having hit a new low, Moscow has no reason to hold back on its murder and sabotage operations. Besides, with its battlefield progress advancing at a grinding pace, targeted killings constitute a way of damaging the enemy, gaining headline-grabbing victories for domestic consumption, and sowing fear among Ukraine’s elites — all at a low cost.

Moscow’s way of working constitutes a hydra that is almost impossible to defeat. Poor and vulnerable Ukrainian youths are groomed remotely via messaging apps and persuaded or tricked into conducting sabotage, arson and bomb plots. Unable to shut down operators located abroad, Kyiv has launched a domestic public awareness campaign. Yet, for every Ukrainian adolescent frightened by the government’s messaging, there is likely to be another tempted by the talk of Kremlin cash.

While teens scattered across the country might be useful guns for hire on a small scale, Moscow has other, far more powerful weapons in its arsenal. The Base, a neo-Nazi group, has claimed involvement in Voronych’s killing. The shadowy far-Right terrorist organization founded in America by alleged Kremlin spy and ex-Pentagon contractor Rinaldo Nazzaro, it has been battling to create an all-white ethnostate in western Ukraine and offering to pay for targeted killings to destabilize Kyiv.

The death of Ivan Voronych is a profound tragedy for Ukraine — not only because it marks the loss of a senior official, but also because it underscores Russia’s increasing success in targeted assassinations. Kyiv should heed the warning from The Base: “The shooting of the SBU colonel is not the end, but only the beginning”.

---

Bethany Elliott is a writer specialising in Russia and Eastern Europe.

BethanyAElliott

---