Ukrainian Intelligence Officer Found Shot to Death at Home

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 Aug. 21.

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

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.

Reported by RFE/RL.