A shootout between Ukraine’s two most powerful intelligence services left three military intelligence officers wounded on Wednesday. The gun battle in a Kyiv residential neighborhood brought a long-running feud into public view.
One Ukrainian intelligence source described it to me as an internal dispute between the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the country’s military intelligence service (HUR). A second, high-level source said the shooting began after HUR personnel tried to recover one of their officers from SBU custody. The detained man was Stepan Kaplunov, deputy commander in the Russian Volunteer Corps, a formation of Russian citizens fighting for Ukraine under HUR.
According to Kaplunov’s lawyer and Ukrainian officials, SBU officers brought him to an apartment used by members of his unit and attempted to search it. Fellow Russian Volunteer Corps service members tried to prevent the search and summoned reinforcements. Armed personnel from both agencies then gathered around the building, producing a standoff that lasted through the night. Gunfire was reported at around 11 p.m. and again the following morning. Three HUR officers were wounded.
One source told me that the SBU had begun investigating Kaplunov on the basis of intelligence it had received. The source described the SBU and HUR’s inability to resolve the dispute without violence as evidence of a wider breakdown within the security system. “It is chaos, complete chaos,” they said.
The SBU offered a different account. It said its officers were conducting urgent searches connected to an alleged terrorist attack organized by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) when a group of armed men attempted to obstruct them. The SBU said it then deployed its Alpha special-forces unit and detained three people belonging to a Ukrainian defense formation. Earlier that morning, the SBU had announced that it and HUR had jointly prevented a Russian plot to assassinate a leader of a Russian opposition movement who had traveled to Ukraine. HUR briefly published a similar statement before removing it. But neither agency explained how the alleged Russian plot was connected to Kaplunov or why participants in what had been presented as a joint operation later exchanged fire.
Kaplunov’s lawyer later said he was no longer in custody, although his whereabouts and the legal grounds for his detention remained unclear. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the incident “absolutely shameful” and ordered an investigation. “In Ukraine, shooting is permitted only at the Russian occupiers,” Zelensky said. “Any other shootout will never be perceived as acceptable.”
One high-level source told me that Oleh Ivashchenko was now likely to be removed as head of HUR, although no decision has been announced. Ivashchenko took over the agency only in January, replacing Kyrylo Budanov when the former intelligence chief became Zelensky’s chief of staff. The confrontation raises questions about Ivashchenko’s authority over units whose commanders and fighters retain close ties to his predecessor. The source said Budanov continues to exert influence inside HUR through officers and special-forces commanders who served under him.
Among them, the source said, is Timur, the commander of the HUR special-forces formation that includes the Russian Volunteer Corps. They described Timur as “Budanov’s man,” placing the unit involved in the confrontation within the former intelligence chief’s continuing network. The source traced the deeper institutional rivalry to a long-standing conflict between Budanov and Oleksandr Poklad, who has served as acting SBU chief since July. “Budanov and Poklad had a conflict, and it continues to this day,” the source said. “Things settled down a little after the personnel changes, but today’s incident exposed everything.”
It is not the first time poor coordination between the services has ended in bloodshed. In March 2022, SBU officers killed Denys Kireyev, a HUR operative who was part of Ukraine’s first negotiations with Russia. The SBU suspected him of treason, while HUR later honored him as an intelligence officer killed while carrying out a special assignment. Later, Kireyev’s death was attributed to the absence of unified coordination between the agencies.
After the case returned to public attention in 2023, Budanov and then-SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk met and publicly rejected the idea of a conflict between their agencies. Both men later portrayed the competition between the services as healthy.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the SBU and HUR have acquired weapons, combat formations, and broad freedom to conduct operations. Both services have conducted front-line missions, long-range drone attacks, and sabotage operations. Their competition has helped produce some of Ukraine’s most audacious wartime operations, but it has also encouraged struggles over personnel, resources, and public credit. The Kyiv shootout showed the danger of rivalry between heavily armed agencies turning into disruption.