Ukraine ‘eliminates' Russian spies in Kyiv shootout
The man and woman killed were thought to be part of Russia's FSB and behind the daylight assassination of one of Ukraine's top spies this week.
The pair are thought to have coordinated the operation on July 10 in which Col Ivan Voronich, a senior operational officer in Ukraine's security service, was shot dead by a pistol with a silencer on the street in Ukraine's capital.
The suspected assassins were found hiding in a spy den in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian intelligence services.
Both agents were killed in a gunfight with Ukraine's SBU security service after they attempted to resist arrest. The security service did not disclose if others were killed in the gunfight.
In a video address posted to Telegram, Vasyl Malyuk, the head of Ukraine's Security Service, said: 'As a result of covert investigative and active counter-intelligence activities, the enemy lair was discovered.'
'During detention, they began to resist. There was a gunfight, so the villains were eliminated. I would like to remind you that the enemy's only prospect on the territory of Ukraine is death.'
Lt Gen Malyuk claimed that the pair had been instructed by a supervisor to monitor the SBU officer and memorise his daily routine, before being handed coordinates to a cache where a pistol with a silencer was stored.
Col Voronich was shot five times by a masked man using the silenced pistol in the Holosiivskyi district of Kyiv on Thursday morning.
The senior security officer died at the scene as footage posted to Telegram showed the assailant running away, stuffing the weapon into the pocket of his shorts.
Col Voronich, who reportedly headed a division of Ukraine's security service focusing on high-level operations, is thought to have played a hand in sensitive sabotage missions carried out within Russian territory.
Ukraine has dealt Russia a series of recent blows in the form of assassinations of high-ranking military officials.
Earlier this month, Russian Maj Gen Mikhail Gudkov, deputy commander of the Russian Navy, was killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on a command post in the Kursk region with a US-made HIMARS missile.
Maj Gen Gudkov, who was one of Vladimir Putin's most prized senior officers, was the latest of at least 10 Russian major generals or lieutenant generals to have been killed in the war so far.
Col Sergei Ilyin, the commander of an elite Russian marine unit, is also thought to have died in the missile strike, according to a since-deleted post by officials from his home district and unverified claims by pro-war Russian bloggers.
In April, Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy chief of the main operations directorate of Russia's army, was killed in a car bomb attack in Moscow in an operation the Kremlin attributed to Ukraine.
It comes as Russia's defence ministry claims that its forces have captured the villages of Mykolaivka and Myrne in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine in their advance towards the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday that at least six people had been killed across Ukraine in the latest in a series of gruelling overnight strikes by Russia which used hundreds of drones and long-range missiles.
Russia has also been strengthening relations with North Korea during a three-day visit by Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister.
North Korean state media reported on Sunday that Kim Jong-un had reaffirmed his 'unconditional support' for Moscow in the war in Ukraine, after an intelligence assessment from Ukrainian officials claimed that North Korea could triple the number of its troops fighting with Russia on the front lines.
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