Ukraine's security service chief resigns amid Zelenskyy's Kyiv reshuffle

The head of Ukraine's security service SBU Vasyl Maliuk resigned on Monday amid a major reshuffle of the government and the president's office.

Known as a mastermind of some of the most successful Ukrainian security operations, Maliuk will remain at the SBU and will focus on “asymmetric operations against Russia," according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy said he tasked Maliuk with making these operations “the strongest in the world”.

“The necessary resources and political support are in place,” Zelenskyy stated amid a series of dismissals and appointments, reshuffling the deck in Kyiv.

Maliuk was behind the country’s unprecedented Operation Spiderweb, when the SBU destroyed over a third of all Russian missile carriers in a coordinated drone attack aimed at different airfields in Russia located thousands of kilometres apart.

In December, the SBU reported that its Sea Baby naval drones struck a Russian Varshavyanka-class submarine in the port of Novorossiysk, marking the first publicly acknowledged underwater drone attack.

Under Maliuk, Ukraine's security service was also involved in multiple attacks on the illegally constructed Kerch bridge between Russian-occupied Crimea and Russia's Krasnodar.

Yevhenii Khmara, head of the SBU's Alpha special operations unit, will serve as interim head of the SBU. Khmara is a seasoned and widely respected special forces officer who has served in Alpha since 2011 and was appointed its commander in 2023.

Zelenskyy’s restructure continues

Maliuk’s resignation is not the only one in Zelenskyy’s latest rejig.

A few days ago, he appointed military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov to oversee the Office of the President. He then reappointed Oleh Ivashchenko, who was previously the foreign intelligence service chief, to replace Budanov as the new head of the military intelligence agency HUR.

Mykhailo Fedorov, previously Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation, has now become the country’s defence minister.

On Monday, Zelenskyy posted on X that he also held a meeting with Ukraine’s former Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. It is unclear what exactly Kuleba would be tasked with, but Zelenskyy said he was now “part of Ukraine’s team”.

Political shake-up

The primary driver of this significant reshuffle was the anti-corruption investigation and the subsequent resignation of Andriy Yermak, the former head of the Office of the President.

Yermak was never formally charged or implicated in the corruption investigation or in the scandal surrounding allegations of graft involving the state nuclear power company, Energoatom.

However, the most significant anti-corruption case of Zelenskyy’s presidency triggered the political changes on a larger scale, as the Ukrainian president had to distance himself from those involved and even possibly implicated.

Yermak allegedly had strained working relationships with Budanov and Fedorov, and, according to Ukrainian sources, even attempted to replace the head of HUR for a while.

He reportedly clashed with Kuleba, then dismissed him and replaced him with Andriy Sybiha, who had also previously served as a deputy to Yermak.

Since then, Ukraine’s top diplomatic role has been de facto carried out by Yermak, who led the most important negotiations and accompanied Zelenskyy at the most crucial meetings, with Sybiha often absent.

The comeback of Kuleba and the appointment of Budanov as the head of the president’s office are clear signals from Zelenskyy that he is distancing himself from Yermak and his policies.

Budanov will now effectively lead the Ukrainian Delegation in negotiations on ending Russia’s war, guarantees from the US and partners, and other security issues.

He also has a stellar reputation within the Ukrainian military and civil society and maintains open lines of communication with the US and even Russia.

Budanov communicated with the Kremlin on prisoner exchanges and participated in face-to-face talks in the UAE during the latest wave of diplomatic efforts by the new US team.