Security Service of Ukraine

The Security Service of Ukraine ( uk, Служба безпеки України, translit=Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrainy}) or SBU ( uk, СБУ, link=no) is the law enforcement authority and main intelligence and security agency of the Ukrainian government, in the areas of counter-intelligence activity and combating terrorism. The Constitution of Ukraine defines the SBU as a military formation, and its staff are considered military personnel with ranks. It is subordinated directly under the authority of the president of Ukraine. The SBU also operates its own special forces unit, the Alpha Group.

The SBU is the successor of the Ukrainian branch of the Soviet KGB, created after the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine in 1991. The agency was negatively seen by the Ukrainian public, as they were widely regarded as corrupt and were for conducting arrests and intimidations of political dissidents. After the Revolution of Dignity, the SBU went through a restructuring with the transition to the new government, as the agency was rife with corruption and infiltration by the Russian intelligence services.

The SBU has since been involved in operations against Russia and pro-Russian separatists in Donbas after the start of the War in Donbas and the wider Russo-Ukrainian War.

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 combating 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.

Organization

The general structure and operational methods of SBU appear to be very similar to that of its predecessor (KGB of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) with exception of Ukrainian Border Guards and department responsible for security of high-rank state officials. Both of them became independent institutions. However, the SBU keeps under its control special operation Alpha units with bases in every Ukrainian province. According to British political expert Taras Kuzio the organizational structure of SBU remains bloated in size compared to its predecessor, the Soviet Ukrainian KGB, because the total number of active officers is as high as 30,000 personnel. It is six times larger than the British domestic MI5 and external MI6 combined.

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 the SBU
* Special Group "Alpha"

History

Ukrainian People's Republic/Ukrainian State

On January 14, 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic founded its Security Services.

In May 1918 the Department of the State Guard of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian State started to form a new intelligence service.Ukrainian intelligence services. Victory and defeat of the last century
Radio Svoboda (January 14, 2018) This was a much more effective agency than its predecessor due to the incorporation of former employees of Okhrana (the secret police force of the Russian Empire). After the fall of the Ukrainian State and the return of power of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) in December 1918, the new UNR authorities destroyed virtually all of the state infrastructure of the Ukrainian State. Therefore, the new secret services founded in January 1919 (with two divisions – domestic and foreign) had to start practically from scratch."Invisible Front": Special Forces of the Times of the Ukrainian Revolution
m.dt.ua (November 26, 2018) It never became as well-led, nor as successful, as its forerunner, the security services of the Ukrainian State. The security services of the West Ukrainian People's Republic on the other hand were well-organized. The West Ukrainian People's Republic were formed in March 1919 as the Field Gendarmerie of the Ukrainian Galician Army (it also served as military police). There was no cooperation between the security services of the West Ukrainian People's Republic and Ukrainian People's Republic.

In 1924 former (April–July 1919) head of intelligence of the Ukrainian People's Republic Mykola Chebotarov started intelligence work on his own initiative for the Ukrainian People's Republic government in exile on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR.

Soviet era

The All-Ukrainian Cheka was formed on December 3, 1918, in Kursk on the initiative from Yakov Sverdlov and Lenin's orders. The commission was formed on the decree of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine and later adopted on May 30, 1919, by the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee. To support the Soviet government in Ukraine, in Moscow was formed a corps of special assignment with 24,500 soldiers as part of the All-Ukrainian Cheka. In spring 1919 there was created the Council in fight against counterrevolution and consisted of Adolph Joffe, Stanislav Kosior, and Martin Latsis. In its early years the security agency fought against the "kulak-nationalistic banditry" (peasants who resisted having their land confiscated and being forced into collective farms). On August 19, 1920, the All-Ukrainian Cheka arrested all members of the All-Ukrainian Conference of Mensheviks after accusing them in counterrevolution. On December 10, 1934, the State Political Directorate of Ukraine was dissolved, becoming part of the NKVD of Ukraine.

1990s–2005

The SBU is a successor of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic's Branch of the Soviet KGB, keeping the majority of its 1990s personnel, many of whom came from the KGB's 5th directorate. It was created in September 1991 following the August 1991 independence of Ukraine. The last Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic's Branch head Colonel-General Nikolai Golushko stayed on as chairman of the newly formed Security Service of Ukraine for four months before moving to Russia. (Golushko headed the Russian Federal Counterintelligence Service in 1993 and 1994.)

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.

According to Taras Kuzio during the 1990s in some regions of Ukraine (Donetsk) the SBU teamed up with local criminals taking part in privatization of state property (so-called ''prykhvatizatsiya'') ignoring its operational objectives and sky-rocketing level of local violence. A notorious incident took place in December 1995 in Western Ukraine when a local citizen Yuriy Mozola was arrested by SBU agents, interrogated and brutally tortured for three days. He refused to confess in trumped up murder charges and died in SBU custody. Later it turned out that the real killer was Anatoly Onoprienko. He was arrested the next year.

Reports of SBU involvement in arms sales abroad began appearing regularly in the early 2000s. Ukrainian authorities have acknowledged these sales and arrested some alleged participants.

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 ( uk, Управління державної охорони України), the personal protection agency for the most senior government officials, which was the former Ninth Directorate of the Ukrainian KGB.

The SBU's State Directorate of Personal Protection is known for its former Major Mykola Mel'nychenko, the communications protection 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, the 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 returned to Ukraine and surrendered in October 2004 (an investigation is underway).

Later, the agency commanders became involved in the scandal around the poisoning 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 cadets publicly supported him as president-elect, while the agency as a whole remained neutral.

2005–2010

In 2005, soon after the elections, sacked SBU Chief Smeshko and other intelligence agents stated their own version of the revolution's events. They claimed to have prevented militsiya from violently suppressing 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 C.J. Chivers of ''The New York Times'' and has never been supported with documents or legally.

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.

2010–2014

The former Security Service of Ukraine Head Valeriy Khoroshkovsky was involved in several controversies during his tenure. The rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv Borys Gudziak heavily criticized a visit from the SBU, forcing Khoroshkovskiy to apologize. Later the head of the Kyiv Bureau of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Nico Lange, was detained for a short while and released only after several high-ranking officials from the '' German Chancellery'' vouched for him. The Security Service described the incident as a misunderstanding. Khoroshkovskiy, as the Chairman of the SBU, eliminated the main competition of Ukrainian TV-giant Inter, officially owned by his wife Olena Khoroshkovskiy, in the face of TVi and Channel 5. In July 2010, Konrad Schuller of the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' wrote that Khoroshkovskiy had connections with RosUkrEnergo. The most important source of Khoroshkovskiy's came from RosUkrEnergo. The President's spokesperson, Hanna Herman, in an interview with this newspaper, did not dispute 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 denied any connections to RosUkrEnergo. However it is a fact that Firtash possesses certain privileges in Inter. Schuller also stated that the SBU acts in direct association with RosUkrEnergo, arresting their main opponents (see RosUkrEnergo) to recover their invested money in the recent presidential campaign. Khoroshkovskiy having declined to give an interview to ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'', Schuller posted a quote from one of his other interviews:

When Minister of Finance Fedir Yaroshenko resigned on January 18, 2012, Khoroshkovsky replaced him in the post on the same day. Khoroshkovsky is also the owner of U.A. Inter Media Group

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