A high-ranking officer of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), Colonel Ivan Voronych, was killed in the morning of 10 June in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi district, according to Ukrainian media.
Voronych was shot dead by an unknown assailant on the street as he was leaving his house. The assailant fired five aimed shots at point-blank range before fleeing the scene. The officer died of his gunshot wounds on the spot before the arrival of medics.
Ukraine’s police and special services confirmed the fact of the murder and the identity of the deceased. Investigative and operational teams of the district and main police departments, criminal investigation officers and cynologists immediately arrived at the scene.
The identity of the shooter and the motives of the crime have not yet been established, and an active search for the suspect is underway.
Ivan Voronych was a senior agent of the 1st department of the 16th directorate of the SSU’s Centre for Special Operations. According to sources in the Ukrainian military structures, he was one of the founders of the department dealing with operational actions against Russia.
Some sources, including former member of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) Ihor Mosiychuk, claim that Voronych was involved in preparing sabotage operations on Russian territory. However, there has been no official confirmation of this information from the SSU or the Ukrainian authorities.
Voronych’s murder has become the second high-profile incident in recent days in Kyiv. Two days earlier, an AFU lieutenant colonel, deputy head of the city’s Territorial Recruitment Centre (TCC, Ukraine’s military enlistment office), was shot dead in the city.
Investigations into both cases are ongoing, with no official links between them.
