KYIV -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for "accountability" and "personnel decisions" after a shoot-out in Kyiv involving the country's major security services.In his daily evening video address, Zelenskyy said the incident took place between Ukraine's Security Service, known as the SBU, and the country's military intelligence agency, the HUR, calling it "absolutely disgraceful.""The only people anyone should be shooting at are the Russian occupiers, in defense of Ukraine," he added. "No other exchange of gunfire will ever be treated by our state as something anyone is permitted to engage in."
Gunfire woke residents in Kyiv's Bereznyaky district early on September 2, with witnesses saying they saw wounded people and traces of blood at the scene of the incident.Shortly after the stand-off had ended, conflicting reports of what had happened emerged.The SBU issued two contradictory statements: first, saying it was working alongside the HUR to avert a Russian "terrorist attack," and then, saying it had resisted a "group of individuals" who had tried to block a search effort.In a later comment to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, a commander of HUR's "Tymur" special forces unit said the SBU agents were "detaining HUR personnel and opening fire without warning" at them.The Russian Volunteer CorpsThe shoot-out appears to be connected to earlier reports concerning the arrest of Stepan Kaplunov, deputy commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, a Ukrainian-backed paramilitary group affiliated with the HUR.
