Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said on Sunday that it successfully tracked down and “neutralized” two Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents who were suspected of assassinating Colonel Ivan Voronych, a high-ranking SBU Special Operations Centre officer, in Kyiv on July 10.
Newsweek has contacted the SBU, Ukrainian officials, and the FSB on Sunday via email for comment.
Why It Matters
Colonel Voronych served in the Special Operations Center (Alpha) and led high-risk operations targeting Russian military assets. As reported by RBC-Ukraine, his unit was involved in sabotage operations behind enemy lines and was credited with eliminating high-ranking members of the Russian administration.
His assassination marked a significant and brazen escalation in the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia that began in February 2022 when Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded the Eastern European nation.
What To Know
As reported by Newsweek, Voronych was shot dead as he left his home in Kyiv on Thursday morning. A masked gunman approached the senior intelligence officer from a residential parking lot and shot him several times with a silenced handgun before fleeing.
According to SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk, the two agents, identified as a man and a woman, were dispatched into Ukraine several days before Voronych was gunned down in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district.
Surveillance footage captured the two suspects following Voronych to a firearms cache where they retrieved a suppressed pistol. Around 9 a.m. local time on July 10, they ambushed and fatally shot him.
An update posted to the Ukrainian government Telegram channel stated: “The SBU eliminated the killers who killed the Security Service colonel in Kyiv. During a special operation, employees of the Security Service of Ukraine eliminated agents of the Russian special services who, on the instructions of the FSB of the Russian Federation, carried out the murder of the SBU colonel in Kyiv.
“The special operation to find the killers of the Ukrainian defender was personally led by the head of the SBU, Lieutenant General Vasyl Malyuk. The FSB agent-combat group was routed to Ukraine in advance and three days ago committed the murder of an SBU employee, our brother Colonel Ivan Voronych.”
SBU and National Police located the pair in Kyiv Oblast during a special operation led personally by Malyuk. When the agents resisted arrest, a gunfight ensued, ending with both suspects being killed in the operation
“SBU and National Police officers established their location in the Kyiv region. This morning, a special operation was conducted, during which members of the FSB intelligence and combat group of the Russian Federation began to resist, so they were eliminated,” the post said.
It went on to say that the head of the Ukrainian special service thanked the employees of the National Police of Ukraine for their professionalism and support, emphasizing that “effective counteraction to Russian special services is a key area of activity for the Security Service.”
The events were conducted under the procedural guidance of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, the post said.
Servicemen of the National Guard of Ukraine and members of the SBU security service hold an anti-terror drills in Slavyansk, eastern Ukraine, on October 13, 2020.
Servicemen of the National Guard of Ukraine and members of the SBU security service hold an anti-terror drills in Slavyansk, eastern Ukraine, on October 13, 2020.
GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images
What Is Happening in Ukraine?
Moscow has been escalating its aerial attacks and making advances in Eastern Ukraine, as President Donald Trump tries to broker an end to the war.
Ukraine said Russia fired hundreds of drones and long-range missiles across the country overnight, in what the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) described on Saturday in an assessment as the third combined strike with over 500 drones and missiles in July alone.
“Twenty-six cruise missiles and 597 attack drones were launched, of which more than half were ‘Shaheds’ [Iranian-made drones],” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening speech. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, 319 Shahed drones and 25 missiles were brought down, while one missile and about 20 drones had hit “five locations.”
“The Russians are intensifying terror against cities and communities to increasingly intimidate our people. But despite Moscow’s plans, the air defense forces are achieving good results,” Zelensky wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday morning.
What People Are Saying
Head of the SBU, Vasyl Malyuk, as reported on the Ukrainian government’s Telegram channel: “As a result of covert investigative and active counterintelligence activities, the enemy lair was discovered. During the detention, they began to resist, there was a gunfight, so the villains were eliminated. I want to remind you that the enemy’s only prospect on the territory of Ukraine is death!”
What Happens Next?
The killing of two FSB agents in a Ukrainian intelligence operation marks one of the boldest direct actions against Russian operatives inside Ukraine in recent months and raises the stakes in a shadow war defined by high-profile reprisals and covert escalations.
Update 7/13/25, 10:43 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.