Ukraine’s intelligence agency has launched an investigation after a person it identified as its employee was shot dead in the war-hit country’s capital, Kyiv, on Thursday.“A criminal investigation has been launched into the murder of an SBU employee in the Golosiivsky district of Kyiv,” the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told AFP in a statement.According to Ukrainska Pravda, an independent news outlet, the SBU member killed was an officer, Colonel Ivan Voronych. The suspect fired five times at Voronych with a silenced pistol, it reported, citing SBU sources.Ukrainian media also posted what appeared to be security camera footage showing a man walking through a parking lot with bags being attacked by another man, who ran towards the victim.Moscow has repeatedly accused Kyiv of orchestrating a spate of high-profile killings of Russian military officials or pro-Kremlin commentators since the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022.Russian military bloggers celebrateRussian military bloggers welcomed the killing and suggested Moscow was responsible.“There are plenty of motives for eliminating this SBU employee, both within our special services and within Ukraine itself,” said Rybar, a pro-Kremlin Telegram channel linked to the Russian military.It noted that the deceased worked for an SBU department which was assigned “special tasks”, which, according to some reports, included sabotage operations against Russia.Russian war correspondent Alexander Kots called the killing “a good sign”.“The enemy should be afraid on his own territory. There should be no safe places for him,” he wrote on Telegram.
