The
Security Service of Ukraine, the SBU, ( ;
Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrayiny, or SBU) is
Ukraine
's main government security agency.
The SBU is
responsible for State security, including: secret police tasks, counterintelligence (which includes
policing the Armed force),
fighting terrorism, smuggling, illegal trading of restricted
substances (WMD
material), and personal security of the President, Verkhovna Rada
(Supreme Council), and other important figures and
institutions (see Politics of
Ukraine).
History
The SBU is
a successor of the Ukrainian Soviet
Socialist Republic'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.
Several years ago, the SBU subsumed the State Directorate of
Personal Protection of Ukraine ( ), the personal protection agency
for the most senior government officials, which was the former
Ninth Directorate of the Ukrainian KGB.
Flag of SBU
Directors of The SBU
- Yevhen Kyrylovych Marchuk,
November 1991 - July 1994
- Valeriy Vasyliovych
Malikov, July 1994 - July 1995
- Volodymyr Ivanovych
Radchenko, July 1995 - April 1998
- Leonid Vasyliovych
Derkach, April 1998 - February 2001
- Volodymyr Ivanovych
Radchenko, February 2001 - September
2003
- Igor Petrovych Smeshko,
September 2003 - February 2005
- Oleksandr
Valentynovych Turchynov, February 2005 -
September 2005
- Ihor Vasylovych Drizhchany,
September 8, 2005 -
December 2006
- Valentyn Nalyvaichenko
(acting), December 2006 - March
2009
- Valentyn Nalyvaichenko,
March 6, 2009 -
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 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, 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
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.
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.
References
- Rada Appoints Nalyvaichenko As SBU Chairman,
Ukrainian News Agency (March 6,
2009)
- Nalyvaichenko appointed chief of Ukrainian Security
Service, Interfax-Ukraine (March 6, 2009)
- Yuschenko Appoints Khoroshkovskyi As First Deputy
Chairman Of SBU, Ukrainian News Agency (January 28,
2009)
- Valeriy Khoroshkovsky appointed as SBU first deputy head -
order, Interfax-Ukraine (January 28, 2009)
- Amnesty International Report 1997 - Ukraine
(July 17, 2009)
- Ukrainian MPs ask prosecution to probe Security Service
head on several claims, Interfax-Ukraine (December 26, 2008)
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