The Ukrainian Spy Agency Behind the Stunning Strike on Russia's Bomber Fleet
The SBU has transformed during the three-year war into the sharp tip of Ukraine's spear after decades of being maligned as corrupt, shot through with traitors and more focused on chasing political opponents than security threats.
Under the leadership of Lt. Gen. Vasyl Maliuk, the agency has taken the fight to Russia with the killings of alleged traitors and Russian military officers as well as with the use of long-range explosive drones that have targeted Russian military-production plants and oil facilities. It has also revolutionized naval warfare by deploying naval drones that forced the Russian Black Sea Fleet to largely abandon its home port in occupied Crimea.
Maliuk, a burly 42-year-old who worked his way up through the ranks of the SBU, has built a reputation as a hands-on leader with a tough streak. In February, Maliuk personally detained a senior officer of the agency who was allegedly spying for Russia.
The SBU's drone attack on Sunday, dubbed Operation Spiderweb, was 18 months in the planning and damaged 41 Russian warplanes at four airfields deep inside Russia, according to the SBU. The agency released fresh drone footage on Wednesday, which showed dozens of drones targeting planes across four Russian airports.
Drones landed on two A-50 planes, which provide early warning of potential threats as well as command and control of the battlefield.
It isn't clear whether there was an explosion from each drone, as the detonation of the drones also cuts the video feed. The A-50s didn't have engines on them, calling into question whether the planes were operational, according to Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. One of the planes was no longer present in satellite imagery of the air base on Monday.
The new video proves that the strike caused more damage than previously revealed through satellite images and videos posted online. It shows that dozens of warplanes were attacked, though it doesn't confirm damage to all of the 41 the SBU says were hit in the operation.
'Operation Spiderweb will go down as one of the most effective intelligence-driven special-operations missions in history,' said Mick Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of defense. 'The clandestine development of a platform to conduct this, the operational security being able to be maintained to protect it and the skill and expertise necessary to execute were exceptional.'
President Trump said Wednesday that he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin for over an hour, including about the Ukrainian assault. 'President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields,' Trump wrote on social media.
SBU operatives smuggled Ukrainian drone parts into Russia and assembled them at a secret location before dispatching them toward air bases concealed in wooden containers on the back of trucks. A Ukrainian law-enforcement official said Kyiv tracked Russian plane movements ahead of the operation to increase the chance of success when they were dispersed across several airports.
Satellite imagery shows the movement of Tupolev Tu-95 bombers, Soviet-era aircraft vital to Russia's long-range missile campaigns, in the days ahead of the attack.
The operation took advantage of a moment when the targeted planes were evenly distributed across Russian air bases to 'maximize the effectiveness of their drones,' said Lair, who first identified the plane movements.
On Sunday, as the trucks were close to four Russian airfields, the roofs were opened remotely and 117 drones flew out and zipped toward their targets. An SBU official said the drones were guided manually by pilots but, in a sign of how the agency is at the forefront of technological advances, artificial intelligence took over when some of the craft lost their signal, automatically piloting the drones to strike their targets along preplanned routes.
Ukrainian officials quickly lavished praise on the SBU for the operation, stressing that it was planned and executed by Ukrainians using homegrown equipment.
'We are grateful to our partners, but this operation was conducted by the Ukrainian side alone,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters on Monday.
In the days after the Russian invasion in February 2022, the SBU was in disarray. Several senior officers had allegedly betrayed their service by assisting the Russians. They were later detained.
The SBU emerged from its Soviet predecessor, the KGB, after Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The KGB and its forerunners had relentlessly targeted Ukrainians who promoted independence. As Ukraine took an authoritarian turn in the late 1990s, the SBU pursued pro-democracy activists and political opponents and shook down businesses.
After Russia invaded and seized Crimea and covertly sent paramilitaries into eastern Ukraine in 2014, dozens of SBU officers switched sides to Russia. After that invasion, Moscow continued to recruit moles inside the agency.
In July 2022, Zelensky removed the then-chairman of the SBU, his childhood friend Ivan Bakanov, and replaced him with Maliuk, who had led operations to root out Russian agents.
Under Maliuk's leadership, the SBU quickly became a feared and creative agency that targeted Russian military installations, equipment and military and pro-war figures in a series of brazen attacks.
Maliuk is respected in the agency, in part because he wasn't a professional politician parachuted in by the country's president, as were several previous leaders. Before running the agency, he worked for years in regional SBU offices and fought against Russia after the 2014 invasion.
'He knows every fighter by name, he's always open for honest conversation,' said one SBU officer, who said Maliuk frequently travels to the front lines of the war.
He has embraced new technology, particularly drones, and is adept at spotting Russian weak points and striking there with spectacular results, officers said.
In an October 2022 attack planned and executed by the SBU, a truck loaded with explosives detonated on the Kerch Bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea. The explosion ignited tanker wagons in a passing cargo train and damaged the bridge, a project feted by Putin and critical to his military's logistics.
Explosive naval drones developed by a special unit of the SBU have struck at least 11 Russian ships, according to the agency's numbers, forcing Russia to withdraw much of its Black Sea Fleet from occupied Crimea. A naval drone was also used to strike the Kerch Bridge again in 2023, severely damaging a support pillar. The officer in charge of the SBU's sea drone program said Maliuk's trust and support during its infancy were critical to its success.
Outmatched in labor and equipment by its giant invader, Ukraine has relied on the SBU to find ways to strike deep inside Russia using long-range drones and covert operations.
The SBU has steadily increased the range of its explosive drones, which now regularly target Russian military and industrial facilities inside Russia.
The security service has pulled off daring assassinations on Russian territory. It used an exploding scooter to kill a Russian general in Moscow and a bomb hidden inside a statuette to take out a Russian war blogger in St. Petersburg. The agency has also been active in Ukraine hunting down spies and saboteurs.
As a result of the successes, the SBU's reputation has soared among the Ukrainian public. Trust in the agency stood at 73% last September, according to a survey by Kyiv-based pollster Rating, compared with 23% in 2021. Ukraine's postal service has released a special stamp to celebrate the SBU's operations.
Write to James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com and Brenna T. Smith at brenna.smith@wsj.com
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