Ukraine's main Directorate of Intelligence, the SBU has officially taken responsibility for the killing of former lawmaker Illia Kyva, as confirmed by Ukraine's defense intelligence spokesman, Andriy Yusov, on Wednesday.

The news unfolded earlier in the day when a representative of the Russian emergency services announced that they discovered a body believed to be that of Illia Kyva in the village of Suponevo, located in the Moscow region.

According to Yusov, Kyva met his tragic end as a result of "a special operation of the Security Service of Ukraine." The details surrounding the operation remain shrouded in mystery.

The Ukrainian broadcaster Hromadske served as the platform for Yusov to make the revelation, amplifying the gravity of the situation. 

The SBU has been engaging in covert actions in Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine, killing Russian journalists thinkers, and even political figures.

The Washington Post reported in late October reported that the SBU had orchestrated the assassination of Daria Dugina, citing unnamed officials.

The report said that Ukrainian operatives installed components of a bomb that killed Dugina in a hidden compartment in a pet carrier, citing officials. On that note, the pet carrier was part of the luggage of the car that entered Russia a month before the assassination carrying a mother and her 12-year-old daughter, the Post said.

The report also explained that since 2015, the CIA has spent tens of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine’s special services into potent allies against Moscow.

The Post wrote that the CIA has provided Ukraine with advanced surveillance systems, trained recruits at sites in Ukraine and the United States, built new headquarters for departments in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, and shared intelligence on a much greater scale that would have been unimaginable before 2014.

Ukraine’s affinity for lethal operations, however, has caused unease among US officials and complicated its cooperation with the CIA, The Post reported.

On that note, it is worth mentioning that over the past 20 months, the SBU and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence have carried out dozens of assassinations, including of war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky at a cafe in St. Petersburg, the report said, citing Ukrainian and Western officials.

Denial

Ukraine continuously denied involvement in the assassination after it happened, and US officials are worried that these types of operations have little direct impact on the ground which could backfire, as they say that the US is angry with Ukraine’s lack of transparency regarding its plans, especially on Russian soil.

It is suspected by some US officials that it was her father who was the actual target of the operation adding that it was believed he was in the car, and not her. 

At the time, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that if the allegation of a Ukrainian connection to the death of journalist and political analyst Darya Dugina is confirmed by the appropriate authorities, Kiev is engaging in its policy of state terrorism.

"The Russian law enforcement authorities are investigating the death of Darya Dugina. If the Ukrainian trace is confirmed, and this version was voiced by DPR head Denis Pushilin, and it must be verified by the competent authorities, then we are talking about the policy of state terrorism implemented by the Kiev regime," Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

Days after the assassination, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that she was killed by Ukraine's special services, with an explosive device hidden beneath the car's floor on the driver's side. The FSB revealed that Ukrainian citizen Vovk Natalya was behind the murder. 

"The crime was prepared and committed by the Ukrainian special services. The performer is a citizen of Ukraine Vovk Natalya ... born in 1979, who arrived in Russia on July 23, 2022, together with her daughter ... In order to organize the murder of D. Dugina and obtain information about her lifestyle, they rented an apartment in Moscow in the house where the deceased lived," the FSB said.