Ukraine: the fall of Ivan Bakanov, Volodymyr Zelensky's "security gentleman"
Ivan Bakanov, the former head of the Ukrainian security service, was suspended by his longtime friend Volodymyr Zelensky.
Here in Ukraine, Tuesday, July 16, 2019. AP - Efrem Lukatsky
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Determined to clean up at the top of the Ukrainian state, the presidency announced on Monday July 18 the suspension of the general prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova and that of Ivan Bakanov, the boss of the secret services (SBU), an ally of the first hour of Volodymyr Zelensky.
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With our correspondent in Kiev
,
Stéphane Siohan
In times of war, the Ukrainian state must hunt down Russian agents within its own services.
Volodymyr Zelensky had to resolve to sacrifice an essential pawn of his political rise, Ivan Bakanov,
his childhood friend who organized his rise to power.
Ivan Bakanov is like a brother to
Volodymyr Zelensky.
The two men have been close friends since their teenage years.
Bakanov, a lawyer by training, became Zelensky's partner in his audiovisual production company,
It was also he who set up the system of offshore companies of the Zelensky clan,
revealed last year in the Pandora Papers.
In 2019, when
Volodymyr Zelensky
embarked on the presidential adventure, Ivan Bakanov became an essential cog in his campaign: he was the creator of the political party "
Servant of the People
".
No intelligence experience
Zelensky elected, it is still in Bakanov that he trusts by appointing him boss of the SBU, the secret services, while his childhood friend has no experience in the field.
As a result, Bakanov's record as head of the secret services is extremely mixed: according to several sources, he showed dilettanteism and deliberately sabotaged the necessary reforms of the SBU.
The services are bloated, with more than 30,000 employees...which makes them highly susceptible to corruption and Russian influence.
Ivan Bakanov also appointed SBU executives in 2020 who turned out to be FSB double agents, particularly in the Kherson region: the responsibility for
the loss of the south of the country
this winter could be attributed to his decisions.
In the ruthless world of power, Zelensky could be forced to politically kill one of the men who accompanied him to the top.
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Ukraine
Russia
Volodymyr Zelensky