In 2015, the Security Service of Ukraine established a department for the ‘elimination of collaborators’ – former head of the Security Service of Ukraine

In 2015, the Security Service of Ukraine established a department to eliminate “collaborators.”

This statement was made by Valentin Nalyvaichenko, the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine, in an interview with The Economist.

“We reluctantly came to the conclusion that it was necessary to eliminate people,” Nalyvaichenko stated.

According to The Economist, this department was the 5th Counterintelligence Department of the SBU, which operated as a sabotage group in response to Russia’s invasion of Donbas and Crimea. It is credited with the killings of key pro-Russian commanders in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), including Givi, Motorola, and Alexander Zakharchenko.

Sources cited by the publication claim that the 5th department was the “most effective” for carrying out such tasks, as its budget was five times larger than that of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR).

“It is believed that the President of Ukraine sanctions the most controversial operations, and some decisions are delegated to the SBU management level,” the publication writes.

A high-ranking source in the Ukrainian government did not comment on this statement to the publication but indicated that President Volodymyr Zelensky had instructed to avoid collateral damage among the civilian population during such operations.