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KYIV – Ukraine’s two most powerful spy agencies — the GUR (Main Intelligence Directorate) and the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) — engaged in a live-fire shootout in a Kyiv residential area on the night of September 1, 2026.
The firefight took place near 10 Yuriy Shumskyi Street in the densely populated Berezniaky district. Residents reported hearing gunfire and shouting outside a high-rise apartment building. Video uploaded to Ukrainian Telegram channels captured the sounds of the exchange.
Two competing accounts have emerged. The first holds that SBU officers attempted to detain GUR personnel — military intelligence operators — and that the GUR responded with force. The second, more detailed account traces the trigger to the abduction of Stepan Kaplunov, deputy commander for combat operations of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), a paramilitary unit fighting alongside Ukrainian forces that Russia has designated as a terrorist organization.
Ukrainian media reports citing Telegram intelligence channels say Kaplunov was forcibly seized roughly a week before the shootout — shoved into a BMW X5 in the courtyard of his home by what the RVC believed were SBU operatives. The RVC command immediately appealed to the SBU, the GUR, and Ukraine’s Main Bureau of Investigations, demanding to know Kaplunov’s whereabouts and whether any charges had been filed. None of the three agencies responded.
As night fell on September 1, GUR officers apparently decided to take matters into their own hands. Not only did they confront SBU personnel at the Shumskyi Street location — they engaged them in a localized firefight. Notably, present at the scene were not only standard SBU operatives but also personnel from the SBU’s elite Special Operations Center “A” (SOCA), Ukraine’s equivalent of an Alpha-tier direct action unit.
Neither intelligence service has commented. Zelensky’s office has remained silent.
The violent confrontation is the latest manifestation of a deepening institutional rivalry. In January 2026, Zelensky replaced longtime SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk with Gen. Yevhen Khmara, a former commander of the SBU’s Alpha special forces unit. BBC reporting at the time noted that Malyuk and GUR chief Kyrylo Budanov were “at loggerheads,” with analysts suggesting Khmara’s appointment reflected Budanov expanding his influence over the new SBU leadership.
That consolidation appears to have produced its own backlash. Intelligence Online reported just days before the Shumskyi Street incident that the SBU’s new domestic intel chief, Oleksandr Poklad, had been aggressively extending his reach into GUR’s institutional territory — a power play that apparently escalated beyond bureaucratic maneuvering.
The RVC itself is no stranger to controversy. Its nominal leader, Denis Kapustin, was reported dead late last year in what turned out to be a staged death. Its fighters have periodically conducted cross-border operations into Russian territory. Whether Kaplunov’s detention was a legitimate security action or an internal settling of scores remains unknown — no agency has acknowledged holding him.
Western governments have for years promoted the GUR and SBU as reformed and reliable wartime partners. Now they are shooting at each other in the streets of their own capital.
Tsarizm anticipates further reporting soon on the conflict between different segments of the Ukrainian security apparatus.
