In Kyiv, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the hunt for agents of the Kremlin continues. It turned out that there are not so many of them.. And it seems that the heads of the SBU and the prosecutor's office could not cope with the situation.. Maybe the problem is that they lacked experience?

Rzeczpospolita writes about this, recalling that President Volodymyr Zelensky removed from service the head of the SBU Ivan Bakanov, as well as Irina Venediktova, who has headed the Prosecutor General's Office since 2020. It seems that they could not cope with a number of mistakes and changes in their departments. Since the beginning of the war, more than 650 criminal cases of high treason and collaborationism have been initiated. This figure was called by Zelensky himself. And in the territories occupied by Russia, there are more than 60 prosecutors and SBU employees who are now cooperating with the Kremlin.

The last straw, apparently, was the detention of the former head of the SBU in Crimea and a close associate of Bakanov, Oleg Kulinich. He is accused of passing classified data to Russia. Former SBU general Andrei Naumov, who until July 2021 headed the internal security department, also fled abroad.. In early June, he was arrested in Serbia on the border with North Macedonia for smuggling a large amount of money.. In Kyiv, he is accused of high treason.

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Bakanov's dismissal is not an easy decision for Zelensky. They are old friends and have known each other since high school.. Before joining the SBU, Bakanov was never associated with the special services.. He headed the Zelensky-owned film studio Kvartal 95. But at the same time, Bakanov was one of those whom the Ukrainian president trusted the most..

Bakanov's appointment was criticized from the very beginning.

Critics insisted that the service, in whose hands the security of the whole country, should be headed by someone with experience in this area.. But in the camp, the authorities rejected this and repeated that people “not belonging to the old system” would purge the SBU and eradicate corruption.. That was the experiment. A similar situation was in the case of Venediktova, a university teacher who never worked in the prosecutor's office.. Looks like the wartime experiment failed. At least in these two areas.