Ukrainian President Zelenskyy dismisses two top law enforcement officials after a large number of treason and collaboration cases came to light, the highest-profile political firings since Russia invaded Ukraine.
, and the chief of the state security agency, known as SBU, Ivan Bakanov, the president's longtime friend and former business associate.in late February, and highlight the challenges Ukraine faces to ensure government agencies are not infiltrated by the Russians.Sunday, Zelenskyy said more than 60 officials in Bakanov’s and Venediktova’s offices were working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied territory.
Zelenskyy used this relative lull to tackle the problem of collaborators within his security service, something that he found “disturbing,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst and the head of the Ukrainian think tank Penta. But Fesenko said it was “unavoidable” amid swirling questions around the duo’s effectiveness in their respective jobs, especially Bakanov’s perceived lack of judgment in appointing security officials who are now suspected of collaborating in Russia-occupied areas.
“Bakanov has been punished for giving up the south of Ukraine and it’s obvious that the Ukrainian security service could not only prevent it, but the traitors within its ranks actually helped it happen,” Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, said. “He should have been punished earlier.”
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