“You can only shoot at the occupiers”: Zelensky demands an investigation into the SBU and GUR shootout in Kyiv

On the night of September 2, 2026, in the Berezniany district of the capital, at 10 Yurii Shumsky Street, a shooting incident occurred in which, according to media reports, units of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) were involved. The incident quickly sparked widespread resonance: in the morning, both agencies publicly stated that they had been carrying out an operation to prevent a terrorist attack that, according to their information, the Russian FSB was preparing against one of the Russian opposition figures residing in Ukraine. Later, the GUR's statement about this operation disappeared from public sources, which further fueled questions about the course of events.

The president's reaction: a “completely shameful” situation

In a video address cited by RBC-Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky called what happened a “completely shameful” situation and emphasized that all the circumstances of the conflict must be fully established. The head of state reported that he had already discussed the incident with Prosecutor General Ruslan Khrachenko. “Here, in Ukraine, you can only shoot at the Russian occupiers in defense of Ukraine. No other shootout will ever be perceived by our state as something that anyone is allowed to do,” the president concluded.

Who is investigating: the OGP, the DBR, and internal reviews

According to Zelensky, the Prosecutor General's Office and the State Bureau of Investigation have been brought in to establish the circumstances. The Office of the Prosecutor General has already opened a pre-trial investigation into the fact of a threat to and an encroachment on the life of law enforcement officers. The president emphasized that the review must cover not only one side's version, but all the testimony and statements of the participants in the conflict: “all the testimony and statements of the participants in this story will be checked, the entire situation step by step.” Once all the circumstances are established, he said, accountability for those involved must follow, including possible personnel decisions by the heads of the intelligence agencies regarding the participants in the events. Separately, Zelensky stated the need for internal investigations within the SBU and the GUR themselves to determine what exactly caused the conflict.

Contradictory data

The two agencies' versions of who exactly fired and in what capacity they acted are at odds. On the one hand, in headlines and initial reports the incident was presented as a shootout between SBU and GUR units. On the other hand, the SBU itself stated in its announcement that during a search at one of the addresses, its operational-investigative group was allegedly attacked by armed individuals who also blocked the law enforcement officers' vehicles with their cars; the special unit “Alpha” was brought in to stop the resistance, and as a result of the use of weapons the attackers were wounded and detained. At the same time, the SBU claims that the detained individuals belong to “one of the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” without directly naming the GUR. Thus, at least two inconsistent attributions of the participants in the shooting have been publicly recorded — “GUR” and “a unit of the Armed Forces” — and it is precisely this discrepancy that the investigation must resolve.

The version about preventing a terrorist attack

RBC-Ukraine sources reported that the operation to prevent a terrorist attack concerned Stepan Kaplunov, deputy commander of the RDK. This detail, however, has not been officially confirmed by either the SBU or the GUR, and the GUR's initial statement about the operation subsequently disappeared. Against this backdrop, the statements about an “attack by armed individuals” and about the detention of members of a “unit of the Armed Forces” look like competing narratives of the same night episode. Until the pre-trial investigation by the OGP and the DBR reviews, as well as the internal inquiries in both intelligence agencies, are completed, it has not been publicly established who first used weapons and what the true cause of the shootout was.