Ukraine says suspected Russian FSB assassins killed in Kyiv region

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KYIV (Reuters) -Ukrainian intelligence agents on Sunday killed members of a Russian secret service cell wanted on suspicion of having shot dead a colonel in Ukraine’s SBU security service last week, the SBU said.

The intelligence agency said in a statement that the operation had sought the arrest of the agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), who it believes were behind the killing of SBU colonel Ivan Voronych in Kyiv on Thursday.

“This morning a special operation was conducted, during which the members of the Russian FSB’s agent cell started to resist, and therefore they were liquidated,” the statement on the Telegram messaging app said.

Russian authorities made no immediate public comment on Sunday’s operation, which mirrored past assassinations of senior Russian military officials by Ukraine during the three-year-old war – a source of embarrassment for Moscow’s vast intelligence agencies.

The SBU said two people – a man and a woman – were suspected of having killed Voronych. It did not say how many suspected FSB agents had been killed on Sunday.

According to the SBU, the alleged assassins were told by their handler to surveil their target and track his movements. They were eventually given the coordinates of a hiding place where they found a pistol with a suppressor, the SBU said.

It said they had tried to “lay low” after Thursday’s killing, but were tracked down by the SBU and police.

The agency’s remit covers security and counterintelligence, but since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine it has also played a prominent role in special operations against Moscow, including assassinations and sabotage attacks.

(Reporting by Max HunderEditing by Gareth Jones and Helen Popper)