A video of Maliuk at the scene showed him standing over the bodies of the two alleged assassins, who lay prone in a grassy area. With assistance from national police, the SBU had identified the suspects through surveillance and counter-intelligence measures, Maliuk said. The investigation found the operatives had monitored Voronych\u2019s routine before receiving a weapon from an FSB handler in Kyiv.<\/p>\n
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Russian officials have not commented on the killing and did not respond to a request for comment. But Kremlin-aligned military bloggers celebrated the killing of Voronych on Telegram.<\/p>\n Voronych had been involved in covert operations against Russian targets, including sabotage missions and cross-border raids deep inside Russian-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine and Crimea, according to SBU officials close to him. One such operation, they said, killed the senior Russian forces commander in Donetsk Arsen Pavlov, known by his call sign, Motorola, in October 2016.<\/p>\n The SBU colleagues said Voronych was key to the success of Ukraine\u2019s shadow war efforts against Russia and had co-ordinated at times with western intelligence services, including the CIA.\u00a0<\/p>\n In December, an SBU bombing in Moscow<\/a> killed Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, head of Russia\u2019s radioactive, chemical and biological defence forces, and his assistant, as they exited a building.<\/p>\n Ukraine\u2019s SBU intelligence service last month carried out one of its most far-reaching operations of the war. Dubbed Operation Spiderweb<\/a>, it smuggled and then deployed more than 100 small drones to strike four airfields deep inside Russia. The sites housed strategic bombers used in long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities.<\/p>\n![\"generic](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/https:\/\/www.ft.com\/__origami\/service\/image\/v2\/images\/raw\/https%3A%2F%2Fd1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net.jpeg\")
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