Russian Shahed drone hits central SBU building in Kyiv, targeting acting head's office
A Russian Shahed drone struck the central SBU headquarters on Volodymyrska Street in Kyiv on 4 September, hitting the office of acting SBU head Oleksandr Poklad, who was not in the room at the time. President Zelenskyi said the drone was aimed directly at Poklad's office. An adviser to the president described the attack as a specially planned operation, suggesting the drone was guided via a small mesh-radio relay turned on by a local Russian agent. Nine people were reported injured in the Shevchenkivskyi district strike.
Key points
- A Russian Shahed drone struck the central SBU building on Volodymyrska Street in Kyiv on 4 September.
- President Zelenskyi said the drone was aimed directly at the office of acting SBU head Oleksandr Poklad.
- General Poklad was not in his office at the time of the strike.
- Nine people were reported injured in the attack in Kyiv's Shevchenkivskyi district.
- Presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov (Flash) said the attack was a specially planned operation.
- Beskrestnov said the drone was guided online via a MESH radio relay about the size of half a school backpack, activated within 5 km of the target by a Russian agent.
- He said no other Shaheds were in the air at the time, making chain-of-control guidance from Russia impossible.
Why it matters
A Russian drone hitting the SBU headquarters in central Kyiv, opposite Saint Sophia's Cathedral, is a symbolically significant strike on a core state-security institution. Ukrainian officials characterise it as a deliberately planned operation rather than a routine long-range attack, and reports point to possible use of a local Russian agent and a small mesh-radio relay to guide the drone, suggesting insider-enabled targeting. The attack also injured civilians in Kyiv's Shevchenkivskyi district.
What happened
On 4 September, a Russian Shahed drone struck the central building of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on Volodymyrska Street in Kyiv, opposite Saint Sophia's Cathedral. President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said the drone hit the office of acting SBU head Oleksandr Poklad. Poklad was not inside the office at the time. The strike injured nine people in Kyiv's Shevchenkivskyi district. Serhii Beskrestnov, an informal adviser to the president known as Flash, described the attack as a specially planned operation. He said the Shahed was guided and targeted online via a MESH radio relay about the size of half a school backpack, and that a Russian agent activated the relay within roughly 5 km of the building for a short time during the strike. Beskrestnov added that no other Shaheds were in the air at the moment, which he said made the usual chain-of-control guidance from Russia impossible.
How Ukrainian sources describe it
Ukrainian coverage is led by domestic voices: President Zelenskyi frames the strike as a direct attack on the office of the acting SBU head, while adviser Serhii Beskrestnov (Flash) provides technical analysis characterising it as a planned operation that may have relied on a local Russian agent and a small mesh-radio relay. The reporting foregrounds the symbolic nature of targeting a core security institution in central Kyiv and emphasises the precision implied by the specific guidance mechanism. Casualty figures from the broader 4 September strike in Shevchenkivskyi district are reported alongside the SBU story.
Background
Oleksandr Poklad was described as acting head of the SBU at the time of the strike. The SBU headquarters is on Volodymyrska Street in Kyiv, opposite Saint Sophia's Cathedral. The reported guidance mechanism — a half-backpack-sized MESH radio relay with internet access, activated within about 5 km of the target — differs from the usual chain-of-control pattern for Shahed drones and is the basis for the claim that a local Russian agent assisted the strike. The cited analysis comes from Serhii Beskrestnov, known as Flash, an informal adviser to the President of Ukraine.