The Security Service of Ukraine (Служба безпеки України, СБУ; Ukrainian: Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrayiny, or SBU as it's sometimes referred to in English) is Ukraine's main government security agency.

The SBU is responsible for:

• state security (including secret police tasks)
• counterintelligence (including inside the Armed forces)
• fighting terrorism, smuggling, illegal trading of restricted substances (WMD material), etc.
• personal security of the President, Verkhovna Rada, other high persons and institutions (see Politics of Ukraine).

The SBU is a successor of the Ukrainian SSR Branch of the KGB, keeping the majority of its 1990s personnel.

Since 1992, the agency has been competing in intelligence functions with HUR (Ukrainian: Holovne Upravlinnya Rozvidky, English: Central Intelligence Department), the military intelligence unit within Ukraine's Defence Ministry. Despite that, current SBU Chief Ihor Smeshko is a former HUR Chief and a career GRU technology espionage expert.

In 2004, the SBU's Intelligence Department was reorganized into an independent agency called Sluzhba Zovnishnioyi Rozvidky or SZR (English: External Intelligence Service). It will be responsible for all kinds of intelligence as well as for external security. For now, the exact functions of SZR, and respective responsibilities of HUR, are not regulated yet.

Several years ago, the SBU subsumed the UDO (Ukrainian: Upravlinnya Derzhavnoyi Okhorony, English: State Guard Department), the personal protection agency for the highest level of statesmen, former Ninth Directorate of Ukrainian KGB.

SBU's law violation and human rights abuse record

SBU's UDO department is known for its Major Mykola Mel'nychenko, the communications protection agent in President Leonid Kuchma's bodyguard team. Mel'nychenko was the central figure of the Cassette Scandal (2000) - the main political event in Ukraine's post-independence history. SBU is directly involved in the case since Mel'nychenko accused Leonid Derkach, SBU Chief at the time, of several crimes, e.g. of clandestine relations with Russian mafia leader Semyon Mogilevich. It is important to note that the UDO was subsumed into the SBU after the scandal, so Mel'nychenko himself has never been an SBU agent.

In 2004, General Valeriy Kravchenko, SBU's intelligence representative in Germany, publicly accused his agency of political involvement, including overseas spying on Ukrainian opposition politicians and German TV journalists. Kravchenko was fired without returning home. After a half-year of hiding in Germany, he has returned to Ukraine and surrendered in October 2004 (an investigation is underway).

Later, the agency commanders became involved in the scandal around alleged poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko—a main candidate in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election. Yushchenko felt unwell soon after supper with SBU Chief Ihor Smeshko, at the home of Smeshko's first deputy. However, neither the politician himself nor the investigators have ever directly accused these officers. It is also important to note that UDO has been officially responsible for Yushchenko's personal protection since he became a candidate. During the Orange Revolution, several SBU veterans and cadets publicly supported him as president-elect, while the agency as a whole remained neutral.

Analysts agree that SBU is relatively free of political involvement. Instead, the Ukrainian militsiya (MVS) is considered to be mainly responsible for persecution of opposition activists and ignoring crimes against them. However, the SBU is widely suspected of illegal surveillance and eavesdropping of offices and phones.

The most notable episode of human rights abuse by SBU happened during the case of country's worst serial killer, Anatoly Onoprienko. Yuriy Mozola, an initial suspect in investigation, has died in SBU custody in Lviv, supposedly as a result of torture.

See also

• MVS (Ukraine)

External links

• SBU's Official web site
• and in English