2025 Kyiv SBU Assassination
The July 10, 2025 killing of SBU Colonel Ivan Voronych in Kyiv was claimed by The Base's Ukrainian cell White Phoenix and separately attributed by Ukrainian authorities to FSB-directed Russian operatives, leaving unresolved whether the two attributions describe a single coordinated operation or competing claims.
On July 10, 2025, Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Colonel Ivan Voronych was shot and killed in the Holosiivskyi district of Kyiv. An unidentified assailant approached Voronych and fired five aimed shots with a silenced pistol; Voronych sustained multiple penetrating gunshot wounds and died at the scene. He was the highest-ranking SBU officer killed in a targeted assassination in Kyiv since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.1
Competing Claims
Two separate attributions were made within days of the killing.
White Phoenix, the Ukrainian operational cell of The Base neo-Nazi network, issued a Telegram statement claiming it had carried out "a carefully planned" operation against Voronych as a "warning to the regime" of President Volodymyr Zelensky. The claim praised its "comrades" for the killing.
The SBU announced separately that it had identified and killed two Russian operatives, a man and a woman, whom Ukrainian investigators said had been directed by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) to surveil Voronych and had subsequently been directed to a weapons cache containing a silenced firearm used in the killing. The SBU framed its response as attribution to Russian state actors.2
Assessment of Attribution
The two claims are not mutually exclusive. Counterterrorism sources told the Kyiv Independent they considered the White Phoenix claim credible. Possible interpretations include: that White Phoenix members conducted the killing as directed or facilitated by Russian intelligence, operating as a cutout; that White Phoenix made a false claim of responsibility for a killing conducted entirely by FSB-directed operatives; or that overlapping networks conducted the operation with dual knowledge.
No Ukrainian government statement publicly confirmed The Base's involvement or linked White Phoenix to the FSB operatives the SBU described. The United States government made no public attribution regarding the killing.3
Concurrent Activity
The killing occurred in the same period that Rinaldo Nazzaro had publicly posted cash-bounty offers on Telegram for attacks on Ukrainian officials, infrastructure, and security forces. The White Phoenix graffiti campaign across Ukrainian cities had been documented since late March 2025. If the claim was genuine, the Voronych killing would represent the first confirmed assassination attributable to The Base anywhere in the world.
Sources
- CBS News, "Ukrainian spy agency officer shot dead with silenced pistol in Kyiv, reports say." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukrainian-spy-agency-officer-killed-kyiv-reports-ivan-voronych/; Kyiv Post, "Russo-American Neo-Nazi Group Claims Responsibility for Assassination of SBU Colonel in Kyiv." https://www.kyivpost.com/post/56428 ↩
- Kyiv Independent, "US-founded extremist group claims killing of SBU Colonel in Kyiv," July 2025. https://kyivindependent.com/us-founded-extremist-group-claims-killing-of-sbu-colonel-in-kyiv/; CNN, "Ukraine says it killed Russian agents suspected of assassinating intelligence officer," July 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/13/europe/ukraine-russia-sbu-assassination-intl ↩
- Novaya Gazeta Europe, "Ukraine wing of Russia-linked neo-Nazi group claims involvement in killing of security service colonel," July 2025. https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/07/16/ukraine-wing-of-russia-linked-neo-nazi-group-claims-involvement-in-killing-of-security-service-colonel-en-news ↩
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