Zelensky sidelines allies in Kyiv's biggest war purge

KYIV • President Volodymyr Zelensky has sidelined his childhood friend as head of Ukraine's security service, and another ally as top prosecutor, in Kyiv's biggest internal purge of the war, citing their failure to root out Russian spies.

The careers of SBU security service chief Ivan Bakanov and Prosecutor-General Iryna Venediktova had personified Mr Zelensky's policy of putting young loyalists in charge of fighting corruption since the former TV comic came to power in 2019.

But nearly five months after Russia's invasion, the president acknowledged that his two allies had failed to root out traitors and collaborators in their organisations. Mr Zelensky on Sunday said the two had been removed from their posts. The deputy head of Mr Zelensky's administration clarified early yesterday that they had been suspended pending further investigation, rather than fired.

More than 60 officials from Mr Bakanov's SBU security agency and the prosecutor's office were working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied territory, and 651 treason and collaboration cases had been opened against law enforcement officials, Mr Zelensky said in a video address.

"Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the national security of the state... pose very serious questions to the relevant leaders," the president added.

Mr Zelensky, now widely feted on the world stage as a decisive war-time leader, had been dogged before the invasion by accusations that he had appointed friends and other inexperienced outsiders to positions in which they were out of their depth.

Mr Bakanov, a friend of Mr Zelensky's since their childhood, had helped run the president's media business during his television career. He then led the successful campaign that saw Mr Zelensky shift from playing the president on a sitcom to being elected in a landslide in real life.

Ms Venediktova, a jurist who attended a meeting just last week in The Hague to discuss the international effort to prosecute Russian war crimes in Ukraine, had advised Mr Zelensky on judicial reform since he entered politics.

Yesterday, Mr Zelensky appointed Mr Vasyl Maliuk, first deputy head of the SBU since March 2020, as acting chief.

After failing to take Kyiv early in the invasion, Russian forces used a bombing campaign to cement and extend their control of the south and east. The Russians have stepped up long-distance strikes on targets far from the war front, killing large numbers of civilians in what Ukraine calls terrorism. Moscow says it is firing at military targets.

REUTERS