Senior Ukrainian Intelligence Official Found Dead

A regional head of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service has been found dead at his home in central Ukraine, the Prosecutor-General's Office said on August 21.

Oleksandr Nakonechny was found by his wife with gunshot wounds in a room of their apartment in the city of Kropyvnytskiy late on August 20 after she heard gunfire, the office said on Telegram.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Ukraine Live Briefing gives you the latest developments on Russia's invasion, Western military aid, the plight of civilians, and territorial control maps. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Police have opened an investigation into the death.

A local politician, Andriy Lavrus, wrote on Telegram that Nakonechny had shot himself. The information could not be independently verified.

Nakonechny has headed the SBU in the Kirovohrad region since January 2021. Prior to that, he worked in the anti-corruption and organized crime unit of the Kyiv Department of the SBU.

In July, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fired the country’s Prosecutor-General Iryna Venediktova and the head of the SBU, his childhood friend and former business partner Ivan Bakanov, citing dozens of cases of collaboration with Russia by officials in their agencies.

Zelenskiy said there would be a revision of SBU personnel and several senior officials at the agency have been fired over the past few months.

With reporting by AFP