The Security Service of Ukraine said on July 13 that it had located and killed Russian agents suspected of shooting and killing one of its senior officers in Kyiv.
The security agency said in a statement that it killed the suspected Russian agents in the area around the Ukrainian capital after they resisted arrest. Two bodies were seen lying on the ground in a video released by the security service.
“This morning, a special operation was conducted, during which the members of the Russian FSB’s agent cell started to resist, and therefore they were liquidated,” the Security Service of Ukraine said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app.
There was no immediate public comment from Russian authorities on Ukraine’s July 13 operation, which was similar to past assassinations of senior Russian military officials in what has become a three-year-old war.
Ukraine’s security agency had said it believed that a man and a woman were involved in assassinating Ivan Voronych, a security service colonel, in broad daylight on July 10, in an attack that was caught on security cameras.
However, it did not say how many suspected Russian agents had been killed on July 13.
The alleged assassins’ handler told them to watch their target and track his movements, according to the security service, which said the assassins were eventually given coordinates of a hiding place where they discovered a pistol with a suppressor.
Ukraine’s security agency said the Russian agents tried to “lay low” after killing Voronych on July 10, but were tracked down by police and security service officials.
While the security service offers security and counterintelligence, it has also played a significant role in special operations against Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. These efforts have included sabotage attacks and assassinations.
Among those operations was a drone attack codenamed Spider’s Web that targeted Russian strategic aircraft located in bases hundreds of miles from Ukraine. The security service also assassinated a top Russian general in Moscow using a scooter with a bomb hidden inside.
Voronych was working in covert operations in Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine and was assisting in planning Kyiv’s surprise incursion in 2024 into Russia’s Kursk region, media reports claimed.
When he was killed on July 10, neither the security service nor Ukrainian police had mentioned any possible motives for his assassination in Kyiv.
“The Security Service and the National Police are taking a comprehensive set of measures to clarify all the circumstances of the crime and bring the perpetrators to justice,” the security service said in a statement at the time.
Several pro-Russian military bloggers celebrated the death of Voronych.
“The enemy must feel afraid on its own territory,” said Russian war correspondent Alexander Kots, who said he hoped that Russia’s security services were responsible for the colonel’s death.
According to surveillance camera footage circulating on Ukrainian social media, a man in jeans is seen leaving a residential building and heading to a parking area where he is approached by another man who shoots at him multiple times before running away.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 60 drones overnight following a series of attacks across Ukraine, using hundreds of exploding drones. Ukraine said it shot down 20 of the drones and jammed another 20.
Four civilians died and 13 others sustained injuries in the Russian attacks on the Kherson and Donetsk regions since July 12, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The Epoch Times contacted the Russian Embassy in the United States for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
