Ukraine's SBU says it foiled alleged FSB plot to kill Chechen exile Zakayev; shootout with GUR in Kyiv sparks inter-agency crisis

Why it matters

The episode lays bare an open, armed conflict between two of Ukraine's principal security and intelligence bodies — the SBU and the GUR — with casualties on the GUR side. It is built around an alleged FSB plot to kill a foreign opposition figure on Ukrainian soil during a high-visibility national holiday. At its center is a senior volunteer combat commander with more than a decade of service, and the competing accounts of what happened to him have become a proxy fight between the agencies. President Zelensky's personal intervention and the dismissal of a senior SBU official signal the political weight assigned to the case, while GUR's framing of the affair as a disinformation campaign against military intelligence leaves the public record actively contested.

What happened

On 3 September the SBU said it had prevented an assassination plot it attributed to the FSB, naming RDK deputy commander Stepan Kaplunov as the alleged organizer and identifying the intended target as a leader of the Russian opposition movement who had come to Kyiv for Independence Day on 24 August. Media outlets citing law enforcement sources named the target as Akhmed Zakayev, the exiled head of the government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria; Zakayev's circle said they learned of the plot only from the media and had received no official notification from the SBU.

The case had already detonated the previous night and morning, when a shootout in Kyiv's Berezniaky district on Yuriya Shumskoho Street left three GUR representatives wounded, according to sources cited by Ukrainska Pravda. The SBU says its investigative team was attacked by an armed group trying to obstruct a counter-terrorism operation; Kaplunov and the RDK counter that he was abducted on 23 August by SBU officers posing as police, held at a 'secret prison' on a restricted site, and that the first three days of questioning were run personally by General Poklad using physical and psychological pressure.

The SBU published video and phone screenshots in which Kaplunov admits contacts with Russian special services; Kaplunov and his lawyer Taras Borovskyi say the confession was extracted under pressure and threats of death. RDK commander Denys Kapustin said no official suspicion had been presented to Kaplunov. GUR publicly accused the SBU of waging a targeted disinformation campaign against military intelligence and the 'Timur' special unit.

President Zelensky called the incident "absolutely shameful," demanded personnel decisions and internal investigations in both services, and on the same day signed a decree dismissing SBU official Oleh Khramov, head of the SBU department for state secrets protection and licensing. Former GUR head and current head of the President's Office Kyrylo Budanov called for a thorough and impartial investigation, noting that the State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) and the Office of the Prosecutor General were already handling the case. The Office of the Prosecutor General opened a pre-trial investigation, and presidential communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said both bodies were clarifying the circumstances of the shootout.

Where reporting differs

Sources differ sharply on the date and circumstances of Kaplunov's initial detention: the SBU frames the events as a counter-terrorism operation that encountered armed resistance from his associates, while Kaplunov and the RDK say he was abducted by SBU officers posing as police on 23 August and held without charges. They also differ on the nature of the 2 September Berezniaky shootout — media report a clash between SBU and GUR operatives that left three GUR personnel wounded, while the SBU says its investigative team was attacked by an armed group trying to obstruct the operation. The authenticity of Kaplunov's confession is contested: the SBU presents his admission of FSB contacts alongside published video and phone correspondence, while Kaplunov and his lawyer say it was extracted under physical and psychological pressure, including threats of death. Sources also disagree on the target of the alleged assassination — the SBU publicly identified only 'a leader of the Russian opposition movement,' while media named Akhmed Zakayev, whose circle said they learned of the plot only from the media. Overall, GUR and Kaplunov describe a deliberate SBU operation to discredit military intelligence and its 'Timur' unit, while the SBU describes a legitimate counter-terrorism case disrupted by armed interference.

Background

Stepan Kaplunov is a Russian-national volunteer fighting for Ukraine since 2014 who serves as deputy commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a unit embedded in the GUR-affiliated 'Timur' special unit. Akhmed Zakayev, the head of the government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in exile, travelled to Kyiv to attend Ukraine's Independence Day on 24 August. The incident has occurred against a backdrop of long-standing institutional rivalry between Ukraine's SBU and GUR.