Betrayal from within: a look at how and why some SBU leadership chose treason at dawn of war

In July 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in a video address that the Security Service (SBU) had successfully purged itself of Russian spies and moles. On that day, he also fired the head of the SBU, Ivan Bakanov, who was known as Zelenskyy's childhood friend. Old friendships did not save Bakanov's career, as "a lot of questions" arose to the head of the SBU regarding the documented ties between Ukrainian law enforcement officials and Russian special services. Nevertheless, Bakanov lives a normal life today.

From various sources, we have gained full access to the SBU's secret correspondence and closed correspondence groups of the southern regional offices.

The first "traitors": Andriy Naumov and Serhiy Kryvoruchko

Brigadier Generals Andriy Naumov, Bakanov's former first deputy, and Serhiy Kryvoruchko, former head of the SBU Office in Kherson Oblast, were publicly declared the first "traitors."

Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced this in his video address in April 2022, and the President's website simultaneously issued decrees to strip both men of their general ranks. ""Accidental generals have no place leading alongside us," the president said of Serhiy Kryvoruchko. His fate came as a surprise to us.

"I'm not a defendant in any criminal proceedings. There is nothing against me, because I know there are no grounds," Kryvoruchko told the hromadske journalist and added: "What is my position today? I am at the disposal of the head of the Security Service. I am assigned to the head of the Security Service of Ukraine, I am subordinate to him."

The SBU itself has a different view. "He is not a current employee, despite the fact that he is still registered in the SBU. He is not a person attached to Malyuk. This is some kind of misinterpretation of him. He is 'at the disposal' of the Central Directorate," explained Alyona Semykina, an advisor to the head of the Security Service.

On February 23, a meeting was held in Kherson with the participation of regional leadership. The video of the meeting was not published, but the commander of the 124th Kherson Territorial Defense Brigade, Dmytro Ishchenko, who was present, later recalled in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda: "The head of the Anti-Terrorist Center at the SBU and the head of the SBU reported there that there would be no invasion."

So, Serhiy Kryvoruchko told his superiors that an attack was unlikely. However, he was not charged with high treason or anything like that – he was simply stripped of his rank and remained within the service.

Andriy Naumov fled Ukraine on February 23, 2022, and is currently in custody in Serbia. The Serbian court recently refused to extradite the former deputy head of the SBU to Ukraine, but he has his own problems with Serbian justice. In Serbia, Naumov is accused of money laundering.

Another "traitor" – Roman Dudin

The former head of the SBU Office in Kharkiv Oblast, who was in Kharkiv at the time of the full-scale invasion, was charged with treason, disobedience and unauthorized leaving his place of service. Dudin is currently being held in the Lukianivske pre-trial detention center in Kyiv.

"On the 24th, the war began for me at 4:25 a.m., when the commander of the Eastern Regional Department of the State Border Guard Service, General Bobrynyuk, called and said that shelling of the state border had begun. On my command, I raised all the personnel of the Kharkiv garrison, reported to Kyiv that this was the situation, and, accordingly, called a meeting. We gathered at my place somewhere between 6 and 7 o'clock. The entire leadership, by the way (Mr. [Ihor] Terekhov, Mr. [Oleg] Synegubov) was also at this meeting," Roman Dudin told us by phone from the remand prison.

Two days later, on February 26, he received instructions from Bakanov to head to Kyiv.

The State Bureau of Investigation thinks differently and bases the treason charges on the following: "On the eve of 24.02.2022, the former official knew about the high probability of a full-scale offensive on the territory of Ukraine by the Russian armed forces, but instead of organizing work to counter the enemy, he actually engaged in sabotage."

That is, he knew about the Russian attack, but did nothing to prepare. However, there is a video recording of a meeting with the head of the Kharkiv Oblast State Administration, Oleg Synegubov, which took place on the eve of the invasion, on February 23. In the video, Roman Dudin talks about the increase in the number of Russian troops on the borders with Ukraine, in Kharkiv Oblast, and that Russian officers are discussing Ukraine on the radio, and "the trends are very negative."

Dudin goes on to report on the measures taken to prepare for a possible invasion in Kharkiv Oblast, strengthening air defense, increasing the number of troops and creating defense lines.

Has Dudin done enough to prepare Kharkiv Oblast for defense? It's hard to say.

The most important point of the SBI's accusation is Roman Dudin's attempt to seize power in Kharkiv Oblast and temporarily remove Oleg Synegubov from office on February 24. Because of this, according to the State Bureau of Investigation, Synegubov was unable to participate in a conference call with Zelenskyy's office at noon on February 24. What was going on? We asked one of the former SBU officers who knows the situation from the words of those involved in the so-called “removal”.

"We lost contact with Terekhov in the morning of February 24. He was still in touch at 6 a.m., or just after five o'clock, and then he disappeared. Synegubov disappeared as well. According to Dudin, they were at the dacha of Feldman, a member of the Opposition Platform – For Life parliamentary faction. The task was to find them - Synegubov and Terekhov. Because they were not there, and they did not get in touch. Bakanov gave him an order to find them. He found them – even if the process proved arduous – but he managed it. They were not escorted out under the arms or anything like that. They just came out and left. I don't think Dudin would have gone there without an order from Kyiv to 'screw' the head of the regional state administration," said Oleh (name changed), a former SBU officer.

The video of the "removal" has also been preserved. It shows the office of the head of the Kharkiv Oblast State Administration, with Roman Dudin sitting at the table. At the beginning of the video, someone says: "We need you to leave the office." Oleg Synegubov and Ihor Terekhov leave in silence. That's it.

"According to the prosecution, the high treason was that he allegedly removed the head of the Kharkiv Oblast State Administration from his duties from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., then ordered the evacuation of his unit and damaged the State Special Communications Service. To check, I made a request to the President's Office to find out whether this removal had taken place at all. And the Office replied that they had no information that the head of the Kharkiv Oblast State Administration had been removed from office. If I were the head of the regional administration and such a removal had occurred, I would have called the top management and informed them about it. But there were no such calls," says Roman Dudin's lawyer, Oleksandr Kozhevnikov.

In the end, even Synegubov himself assured Dudin in conversations to which hromadske got access that he had no complaints against him. At the time, however, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the President’s Office, did have a bone to pick with him. His name was frequently mentioned in the correspondence between Dudin and Bakanov, but his true role in the story was initially unclear. Kyrylo Tymoshenko refused to meet with us. We accidentally found documents confirming that he had testified in the Dudin case and told investigators about the alleged removal of Synegubov in the first days of the full-scale invasion.

The President’s Office does not have such information. But Kyrylo Tymoshenko, who was fired from the Office, does? Why did Mr. Tymoshenko feel the need to tell the investigators about it? Here is Roman Dudin's version.

"Mr. Tatarov, Mr. Yermak, Mr. Malyuk, Mr. Kyrylo Tymoshenko are behind this particular case [against me]. Why did this happen? Because we recorded the facts of the theft of humanitarian aid. It came to the city of Ternopil, from there it was sent to the city of Dnipro, where it was repackaged and sent to other regions, including the city of Kharkiv. That is why the residents of Kharkiv did not actually receive humanitarian aid, instead it was sold in supermarkets, markets, etc. under the guise of goods without excise stamps. Kyrylo Tymoshenko is very [much against exposing] the facts of embezzlement that we documented in Kharkiv Oblast."

At the same time, Kyrylo Tymoshenko himself could not recall in a telephone conversation whether he had testified in the Dudin case: "Frankly speaking, I don't want to comment on anything about this personality in this case, because he is trying to get something out of it through PR stunts. That's why I'm not interested at all. If I gave any testimony, it was a long time ago. And even if I did, I can't tell you about it."

Tymoshenko denied any involvement in the embezzlement of humanitarian aid, although he admitted that such criminal proceedings had been initiated. "All the cases of alleged embezzlement of humanitarian aid [involving] me, someone else from the Office or regional governors... I have not heard a single fact or progress in these cases, in any of the regions."

While Roman Dudin may hold administrative responsibility, the specific allegations levied by the SBI appear dubious at best.

The Shevchenkivskyi Court of Kyiv has already begun to consider Dudin's case. We asked the prosecutors who have been collecting evidence and testimony for over a year about the role of the president's friend in this story. The prosecutors forwarded our questions to the press service of their department.

In response to a request from hromadske, the Prosecutor General's Office first explained at length why it was absolutely impossible to disclose the personal data of participants in the criminal proceedings, and then said: "During the pre-trial investigation in the said criminal proceedings, B. was not interrogated as a witness. During the trial of the said criminal proceedings, the prosecutors who support the public prosecution in it, if necessary, will resolve the issue of summoning and interrogating B. as a witness in court." The letter "B" was used to designate Bakanov.

Another "traitor": Oleh Kulinich

Oleh Kulinich, the head of the Security Service of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, was detained last July and charged with treason. He once studied at the Soviet KGB school and later at the Russian FSB academy. He worked for the SBU until 2009. Later, he worked at the state-owned NPP operator Energoatom under the leadership of Andriy Derkach, a According to the SAPO, former MP Andriy Derkach received at least USD 567 thousand from Russian intelligence agencies for subversive activities against Ukraine.suspected traitor and former MP. In October 2020, President Zelenskyy appointed Kulinich as the head of the SBU office in Crimea.

At the outbreak of the full-scale war, he was in Kherson. But he received an order from his superiors and went to Kyiv.

He sent a letter to the hromadske editorial office through his lawyer, explaining how he left Kherson: "At approximately 8 a.m. on February 24, 2022, at the initiative of Ivan Bakanov, an operational meeting was held in a closed video conference under his chairmanship. Based on the results of the report on the development of the situation in the Crimean direction, the Head of the SBU instructed to ensure the evacuation (women, children) from the city of Kherson, as well as the withdrawal of personnel to the emergency control point. As the Russian troops approached Kherson, I was the last to leave the SBU building and headed to the eastern part of Kherson Oblast."

Bakanov's deputy, Volodymyr Horbenko, gave Kulinich the order to go to the capital. Horbenko himself confirmed the authenticity of this correspondence.

hromadske: Can you explain why he had to go to Kyiv?

Horbenko: To defend the capital, which was almost surrounded.

hromadske: Do we understand correctly that this order was agreed with the management?

Horbenko: You understand correctly. But I think you should ask Ivan Hennadiyevych these questions. He, all the deputies and some heads of departments were in the same office. So these were general, balanced decisions. Then they were broadcast to everyone.

"Everything he did both before and after February 24 was coordinated," says lawyer Dmytro Palamarchuk about his client. According to him, Kulinich's actions were not just coordinated – he actually carried out orders from his direct supervisor, Ivan Bakanov, given personally and sometimes passed on through one of his deputies.

"Kulinich received an order to move to defend the city of Kyiv, as there were reports that if the capital fell, there could be no question of defending the country. In this regard, he received an order to move to the defense of the capital, which he fulfilled. So it was both an order and an instruction – call it what you want, it doesn't change the point," Palamarchuk says.

But even if there were no instructions, the SBI's wording about "leaving the place of deployment" is still questionable. After all, the main office of the Crimean SBU is located in Kyiv. That is, Kulinich did not even formally leave his place of service, but simply moved from one office to another.

On April 5, 2023, the SBU and the SBI published audio recordings of several conversations between Oleh Kulinich and his alleged overseer from Moscow, former Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Volodymyr Sivkovych. According to the investigation, Kulinich was supposed to introduce a Moscow agent, “Okhotnik”, into government structures. According to one version, “Okhotnik” was fugitive Andriy Naumov, but this has not been proven. The published conversations were allegedly recorded in 2019 and early 2020. Oddly enough, Kulinich did not work for the SBU at the time. He was appointed only in the fall of 2020.

"The version of the pre-trial investigation body that he committed high treason, namely the transfer of data in a conversation with Sivkovych, which is now being published on the Internet, appeared after he was detained. The origin of the electronic medium on which these records are stored is very noteworthy," says Oleh Kulinich's lawyer Dmytro Palamarchuk.

When the SBI and the SBU published the recordings, one might have thought that they had been purposefully processing and "leading" Kulinich for many years, keeping his communications under control. In reality, the flash drive with the kompromat on Kulinich was "accidentally" found in an empty Kyiv house much later after his arrest. The abandoned building was searched in connection with a completely different case, but the only thing that was found was the same flash drive with the conversations. It is not known who recorded it and why. So this may undermine the evidence in court.

When Kulinich was detained on July 16, 2022, Bakanov learned about it after the arrest.

"A little more chaos than the situation called for"

Before the war, the SBU was almost the only one of all the intelligence services that believed there would be no full-scale invasion, says Ukrainian MP Serhiy Rakhmanin, a member of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence. "They didn't deny [the possibility of an invasion], but they put it under huge doubt, unlike other bodies. On the other hand, they said they were ready for anything, they were determined, and they had everything under control. The first days, first weeks, first months showed that this was not the case. There was much more chaos and disorganization in this agency than the situation required."

One of the employees of the Kyiv SBU office confirmed in a conversation with journalists that on February 24, 2022, chaos reigned in the "outfit". By the evening of February 25, almost the entire SBU Central Office had been evacuated to Lviv and Vinnytsia Oblast. That is, few people remained in Kyiv.

"You're sitting in your office, there's nothing there anymore, the computer is dismantled. All the papers have been taken away and destroyed. And then 'bang', we hear an incoming strike... And it turned out to be a hit on Defense Intelligence, around 11 o'clock. The ‘Kinzhal’ struck. And the command came in about 10 minutes later. I think it's a missile alert, we have to leave the building immediately. And then everyone started grabbing their things and running out with them. Of course, it was quite a sight.

And so we gradually found out, in the late afternoon, that, for example, the information and analytical department had evacuated to Lviv. Then the secret services also went there, because they had business there. Then it turned out that the administrative support department had already fled somewhere. And all, let's say, auxiliary units knew that they had to go to Lviv sometime in the afternoon... About 10% of the service was still at work. I think all of the Alpha unit was there, all of the counterintelligence remained, and the other departments were evacuated until March 25."

"If we don't defend Kyiv, Ukraine will be finished, so you are needed here," is how Ivan Bakanov explained to his subordinates from the frontline regions why they should leave everything behind and go to the capital.

Ivan Bakanov himself and his deputies were at their workplaces.

"On March 26, there was a barn lock hanging at 18 Volodymyrska Street (Kyiv SBU office - ed.). But the top management of the SBU was there: Bakanov, Andriushchenko, Berezenko, all of Bakanov's deputies, heads of departments and Alpha employees... Probably everyone. My group of about 30 people and I occupied the first floor on Volodymyrska Street. I also went with my special unit to work on addresses on Kostiolna Street, Khreshchatyk Street - the central part of the city near the government quarter. The situation in Kyiv was very difficult. Why were we released back to Kharkiv on the 28th? Because that was the day when two brigades were deployed," said the accused Roman Dudin.

"In the case of Kulinich and Dudin, it would be logical, in my opinion, to interrogate Ivan Hennadiyevych and simply ask him whether he gave such orders or not," Serhiy Rakhmanin told hromadske. "I may be wrong, maybe something has changed, but according to my information, he was not interrogated as a witness in any of these cases, which seems strange to me at least. If you and I are now arguing about whether this order existed or not, whether it was given to everyone or selectively, whether it was duly duplicated in the form of a document... Wouldn't it be easier to summon Ivan Hennadiyevych Bakanov, who is in Ukraine, and ask him these questions? Then we wouldn't be playing these games, and instead would be dealing with facts."

Where is Ivan Bakanov?

Bakanov also learned about his dismissal after it happened. And after he was "fired" from the SBU, he seemed to disappear altogether.

According to our information, he still lives in his house in the Kyiv suburbs, goes shopping in a supermarket and plays football.

In April 2023, Ivan Bakanov registered as a sole proprietor, allegedly planning to rent out some real estate. In June, he received a lawyer's license in Poltava. We wanted to hear his version of events in the Security Service at the beginning of the full-scale war. After all, two of his direct subordinates are accused of treason. We called him many times, wrote to him in messengers, but the former head of the SBU is silent.

"Yermak is constructing his rigid power vertical"

Six months ago, Vasyl Malyuk was appointed head of the SBU. Now it's official. Since Bakanov's suspension, he has only been acting.

Malyuk is 40 years old. He is a major general, served in the state security agencies, and took part in the Anti-Terrorist Operation.

In the spring of 2020, Vasyl Malyuk became the deputy head of the SBU for the first time. A year later, Zelenskyy fired him. The President's Office explained his dismissal by saying that he had failed to cope with the task of fighting smuggling. In September 2021, Malyuk was spotted at the birthday party of one of the deputy heads of the President’s Office, Oleh Tatarov. On February 16, 2022, Malyuk was appointed Deputy Minister of the Interior. And with the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he was reinstated in the position of deputy head of the SBU.

Ivan Bakanov's former colleagues, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that even before the full-scale invasion, no one took him seriously. The service was run from the President’s Office, and Ivan Bakanov's deputies frequented the Zelenskyy administration as if to confess, ignoring the chain of command.

We received this information from several sources, one of them from the President’s Office itself. It was Vasyl Malyuk who had been working on Kulinich's case since 2021. The SBU calls the latter a person close to Bakanov, and this explains the frequent visits of the current head to the President’s Office during Bakanov's tenure. Indeed, they do not deny the fact of such visits.

This is how our informant Oleh (name changed), a former SBU officer, describes these trips: "The deputies bypassed Bakanov to report to Tatarov and the second deputy... There is Yermak, who is setting up his rigid vertical, his people who are loyal to him and report to him. Therefore, the President's Office knew everything that was happening in the SBU. It cannot be that Bakanov appointed Kulinich on his own, that he is to blame for everything, that he is a super traitor. After all, this appointment was approved by the President’s Office."

MP Serhiy Rakhmanin said that he had never received information about the reports of the SBU deputy heads to the President’s Office: "If this happened, it violates not only the principles of subordination, but also the regulatory framework... I think this procedure is spelled out, and the head of the SBU should report to the president... The president has the right to create advisory bodies, including the PO. There are supervisors responsible for certain areas. As far as I understand it, the SBU belongs to the cluster of law enforcement agencies for which Tatarov is responsible. Do they have to report to Tatarov? I don't know. I think not. Should they have contacts with Tatarov, if he is the supervisor and is responsible for this area? I think so, but only with the direct authorization of their superior, that is, the head of the SBU. To what extent was Bakanov an effective head of the SBU? In my opinion, he was not an effective head of the SBU. And even before his suspension, I had a deep suspicion that he was not in charge of the SBU, but to some extent was a nominal head of the SBU."

hromadske has been negotiating with the Security Service's information department for several weeks to get answers to the questions raised in this investigation. However, we received a link from the SBU to a complimentary interview of the head of the service with Natalia Moseychuk during the telethon program. The SBU even provided us with the time codes. Here is what the head of the office said about Dudin.

"On the day after February 24, he [Dudin] fled to Kyiv. He stayed here until March 2. And when Kulinich was put at the disposal of the Presidential Decree on my initiative, Dudin realized that he was next and quickly returned to Kharkiv."

Malyuk's statement, which was written to us by the Security Service employees themselves, is not true. Kulinich was dismissed by President Zelenskyy on March 2, 2022. The day before, Dudin had already arrived in Kharkiv and even shared a photo of his department with Bakanov.

Obviously, Malyuk does not really want to answer our questions directly, and neither does Bakanov. Meanwhile, the official version, which was voiced by Malyuk on national television and forms the basis of the criminal case, is falling apart before our eyes. We sent inquiries to the President's Office, the Prosecutor General's Office, and the State Bureau of Investigation. Only the Prosecutor General's Office responded. The SBI limited itself to a kiss-off, and the presidency decided to ignore us.

Author: Yaroslava Volvach