Posted on 01/18/2023 5:11:50 PM PST by Zhang Fei
Days after Russia’s invasion, Ukrainian intelligence agents left a corpse on a sidewalk in the center of Kyiv with a bullet hole in the back of the skull.
The dead man, 45-year-old banker Denys Kiryeyev, was killed as a traitor. The Security Service of Ukraine—the country’s primary domestic intelligence agency, known as the SBU—shot Mr. Kiryeyev because he was allegedly spying for Moscow, an agency official said.
Yet days after Mr. Kiryeyev’s body was dumped, he was buried a hero and interred next to Ukraine’s first foreign minister. According to Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, Mr. Kiryeyev had passed on information from his Russian contacts that helped Ukrainian forces successfully defend their capital city last February. “If it were not for Mr. Kiryeyev, most likely Kyiv would have been taken,” the general said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed papers to award Mr. Kiryeyev a posthumous medal for “exceptional duty in defense of state sovereignty and state security.”
For years, Russia invested the equivalent of billions of dollars to infiltrate Ukraine’s political and intelligence circles, seeking to divide loyalties within Ukraine’s spy agencies and to establish a network of agents should Moscow decide to attempt to seize the country. Past decades of political corruption also eroded public trust. Russian officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Kiryeyev at various times appeared to belong to each of the opposing camps. He had traded a career at Western financial institutions to manage money and assets for two wealthy brothers who had close ties to Russia-aligned Ukrainian politicians. The work paid for Mr. Kiryeyev’s real estate, a fleet of cars and vacations in Greece and Paris. It also cast a shadow on his reputation among officials and colleagues worried about Russian influence.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Ukraine ping
Article about the Ukrainian financier and collector of Russian contacts, Denys Kiryeyv, who may have saved Kiev, thanks to his detailed accounting of Russian troop numbers and dispositions. The assassination of Kiryeyev, by what may have been Russian moles in Ukraine’s intelligence service (SBU) occurred just a few days after the Russian attempt to capture Hostomel airport went down in flames along with the Russian troop transports shot down while approaching Kiev. If Putin did order his men in Ukraine’s SBU to kill Kiryeyev, he may have rolled up his own intel network in Ukraine out of a short-sighted thirst for revenge. Days after the assassination, the unfortunate Kiryeyev was awarded a posthumous medal by Zelensky and buried with state honors. By July, the SBU chief had been removed, along with dozens of other high-level SBU officials.
“Mr. Kiryeyev at various times appeared to belong to each of the opposing camps.”
So he was a double agent. Or perhaps a triple agent. Either one is a dangerous situation to be in.
Wow, I did Nazi that coming! Same SBU didn’t like the little villagers outside of Kiev that were shot in the back of their heads too, wearing white armbands and seeing Russian troops as their liberators.
“Wow, I did Nazi that coming! Same SBU didn’t like the little villagers outside of Kiev that were shot in the back of their heads too, wearing white armbands and seeing Russian troops as their liberators.”
Yep, Ukraine’s Bucha massacre was the first thing that came to my mind too - looks as though the killing was done in the identical way.
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