Thread by @mattia_n

The arrest of a Oleh Kulinich, who was in charge of the SBU’s department for the occupied Crimea, is as spectacular as it is embarrassing for Zelenskyy’s trusted ally and head of the country’s intelligence service Ivan Bakanov. Small 🧵 /1

https://twitter.com/mrkovalenko/status/1548394042353889280

As @MrKovalenko outlines, the arrest of the SBU’s Oleh Kulinich is spectacular but also embarrassing. Kulinich studied spy craft at the KGB academy in Moscow and was appointed to his recent position in October 2020. /2

According to the State Bureau of Investigations, the agency that arrested him, Kulinich (whose name is not mentioned in the press release) handed over intelligence to the Russians, making him the highest ranking mole to be arrested in the recent past. /3
dbr.gov.ua/news/dbr-ta-sb…

LARGE questions remain as to WHY the Russian army was able to seamlessly capture Kherson and advance on Mariupol, through which Ukrainian officials claimed to be dense minefields and prepared Ukrainian defensive positions. /4

The list of disloyal high-ranking SBU officials or those who failed to perform their duties adequately is growing. Take the SBU Kharkiv head, who was removed in May for not for not working to protect the city in the initial phase of the invasion. /5
kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi…

Or take Andriy Naumov, a brigadier general who headed the SBU’a internal security department. He fled (!) 🇺🇦 shortly before the invasion and was caught in Serbia with an alleged 🇩🇪 smuggler, €600,000, $125,000 cash & a stash of emeralds. /6

As @ChristopherJM outlines in his sharp piece from June, two SBU officials responsible for Kherson are charged (so was Naumov) with treason and the two are alleged to have aided the quick Russian advance.👇 /7
politico.com/news/2022/06/2…

“There’s so many regional SBU managers who behaved really strange. Some ran away. One guy, for example, in Chernihiv, he [burned down] the whole building of the SBU for no reason, … because he said that he has no time to get all the documents out,” said a 🇺🇦 top official. /8

There are pressing questions which have to be answered. To throw in just a few: why the SBU, the intelligence service (!), had such a prominent role in the organization of the country’s (southern) defense and how could moles within the SBU undermine the 🇺🇦 defense? /9

Another pressing question: Why did the SBU and or the military fail to blow up the bridge over the Dnipro to slow down or possibly prevent the Russian invasion of Kherson and assault on Mykolaiv? /10

Just briefly for the context: The oversized SBU (nearly the size of the FBI) has been a “potent tool” of those governing Ukraine and for over two decades it was used to harass businesses and political opponents (in the worst times) and to enrich actors from within the SBU. /11

For years, the ideas, concepts and even ready draft laws to reform the SBU and make it more effective (!) modeled on western intelligence services were ignored first by Poroshenko and then by Zelenskyy. The SBU reform remains a condition to integrate with the West! /12

In 2019, Zelenskyy’s trusted ally took over the SBU and he bears the political responsibility for what happened since.

The trust of Zelenskyy in Bakanov seems to have been bigger than the former’s ability to manage the old, unreformed SBU with its 30,000 agents. /13

With all its failures and deficiencies, the SBU does play an important role in fighting this war. But the Ukrainian political leadership will have to quickly draw the right conclusions from the failures of the SBU. Obviously, real reform in wartimes is extremely difficult… /14

But even if larger structural reforms are (understandably) put on hold, the service has to be managed by professionals who know the SBU with all its strengths and weaknesses. Is Bakanov the right man for the job? Skepticism in Kyiv is very big… /15

The problems with the SBU also illustrate a larger problem that Ze‘ and his team have. They distrust institutions and failed to reform dysfunctional ones. In wartimes this informal governance and direct personal control has its advantages but also shortcomings… /end