When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj appointed a new head of the Ukrainian secret service SBU after his election victory in 2019, it was reminiscent of the TV series "Servant of the People": In the series, the fictional president played by Zelenskyj entrusts old friends with important positions because he was in the ruthless intrigues of Ukrainian politics only they can be trusted.

Three years ago, the real President Zelenskyi put a lifelong companion at the head of the SBU: Ivan Bakanov, his school friend, head of his television production company and head of his election campaign.

Reinhard Veser

Editor in Politics.

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On Sunday evening, Selenskyi suspended Bakanov from office with a hard justification: insufficient administration of office with serious consequences.

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova was dismissed at the same time as Bakanov.

Both have not yet been formally dismissed – they should not hold office while their authorities are investigating.

Since the beginning of the war, 651 criminal proceedings for treason have been opened against employees of the various security agencies, Zelenskyy said.

More than 60 employees of the public prosecutor's office and the SBU remained in the occupied territories and are now working for Russia.

"This raises very serious questions for the relevant bosses," said Zelenskyy.

As early as March, Selenskyj expressed dissatisfaction with the secret service

Both the appointment of Bakanov as head of the SBU and Venediktova's appointment as Attorney General in March 2020 by Zelenskyi had been heavily criticized in Ukraine.

Doubts about his qualifications were decisive for Bakanov.

He had nothing to do with the services until his appointment.

Venediktova succeeded Ruslan Ryaboshapka, who was well-respected in Ukrainian civil society, as head of the law enforcement agency.

He attributed his fall after less than six months in office to intrigues by oligarchs.

Venediktova was part of Zelenskyy's campaign team in 2019 and ran in third place on the list of the presidential party "Servants of the People" in the parliamentary elections in the summer of that year.

While Venediktova's suspension came as a surprise, speculation had been going on for weeks about the imminent dismissal of SBU boss Bakanov.

The risk of changing the intelligence chief in the middle of the war and the difficulty of finding a successor have kept the president from breaking with Bakanov earlier, according to Ukrainian media reports.

By the end of March, Selenskyj had expressed dissatisfaction with the secret service.

"I don't have time now to deal with all the traitors," he said at the time.

He named two of them: Andriy Naumov, the head of internal security at the SBU, who fled Ukraine the evening before the Russian attack and was arrested in Serbia in early June with a large amount of cash, and the former head of the secret service of the Kherson region Serhiy Kryvoruchka.

The suspicion that treason was involved in the rapid conquest of Cherson in the first days of the war has long been voiced in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian secret service is regularly at the center of scandals

SBU officials, police and prosecutors had already left Kherson before Russian troops reached the city.

Apparently, the attackers knew the location of the minefields on the isthmus connecting Crimea to the mainland.

It is also unclear why the bridge over the Dnipro on the southern outskirts of Kherson was not blown up in time.

The very wide river there would have been a significant obstacle for the Russian troops.

The fact that at the end of May Zelenskyy fired the regional head of the SBU in Kharkiv on the grounds that he "did not work for the defense of the city" also caused a stir.

The last reason for Bakanov's suspension was possibly the arrest on Saturday of the head of the SBU department responsible for Crimea, Oleh Kulinich.

He is accused of having worked for the Russian secret service FSB.

Like Naumov, who was arrested in Serbia, he was brought to the SBU by Bakanov.

Both Naumov and Kulinich had previously been linked to corruption scandals by the Ukrainian media.

Bakanov actually started with the promise of a fundamental reform of the SBU.

The secret service is oversized with structures taken over from the Soviet era and around 30,000 employees.

He is regularly at the center of scandals.

His responsibilities also include combating corruption;

in this function he was in competition with the anti-corruption authorities that had been created since the 2014 revolution.

However, the SBU's alleged corruption fighters in particular have a reputation for using their power and knowledge illegally and commercially.

Ukraine's western partners have repeatedly called for a fundamental reform of the SBU.

In its current form it is seen by NATO as an obstacle to closer cooperation.

However, changes were not only prevented by resistance from the SBU itself, but also by the fact that every Ukrainian president still recognized the secret service as an important instrument of power.