Zelensky Dismisses SBU Department Head Oleksiy Hramov Amid Beresnezhky Shootout

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree dismissing Oleksiy Hramov from the post of Head of the Department for the Protection of State Secrets and Licensing of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). This is reported by RBC-Ukraine, citing the document. The text of the decree states directly: “Dismiss Hramov Oleksiy Vitaliyovych from the position of Head of the Department for the Protection of State Secrets and Licensing of the Security Service of Ukraine.” At the same time, the reasons for the head of state’s personnel decision are not disclosed in the document. Hramov had held this post since March 6, 2023.

The Personnel Decision and Its Timeline

The dismissal decree was published on Wednesday, September 2, 2026. According to several media outlets, the decision was made “suddenly” and without any public explanation of the motives, which in itself sparked widespread resonance. Some sources link the personnel change to the president’s statements about the need for personnel decisions in the law-enforcement structures following the shooting incident in Kyiv. Formally, however, the document itself does not cite grounds for the dismissal, and there is no publicly confirmed link between the decree and a specific event.

Context: the Shootout in the Capital’s Beresnezhky District

The personnel decision coincided in time with an incident on the night of September 2 at 10 Yurii Shumsky Street (the Beresnezhky district of Kyiv), where a shooting took place. In the morning, the SBU and the GUR (Military Intelligence Directorate) reported that they were carrying out an operation to prevent a terrorist attack that, according to their data, the Russian FSB had planned against one of the Russian opposition figures in Ukraine. RBC-Ukraine sources indicated that this referred to Stepan Kaplunov, a deputy commander of the RDV (Russian Democratic Corps). Later, the GUR’s statement about carrying out such an operation disappeared from open sources.

Reaction of the Security Services and the Prosecutor’s Office

Subsequently, the SBU presented a different picture: during a search at one of the addresses, the operational-investigative team was allegedly attacked by armed individuals who also blocked the way for law-enforcement officers with their vehicles. To stop the resistance, according to the agency’s data, the special unit “Alpha” was deployed. The SBU reported that people were wounded as a result of the use of weapons and that the attackers were detained, with the agency naming them members of the military personnel of one of the units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The Office of the Prosecutor General launched a pre-trial investigation into the fact of a threat to and an encroachment on the life of law-enforcement officers. GUR head Kyrylo Budanov, in a comment to RBC-Ukraine, stated that the National Police (GBR) and the OPG were clarifying all the circumstances, and called for a thorough and impartial investigation. Zelensky himself called the situation “utterly shameful” and stated that all the circumstances of the conflict must be established.

Contradictory Data

The parties’ versions of the essence of the incident diverge. The morning version from the SBU and the GUR described the event as an operation to prevent a terrorist attack planned by the Russian FSB against a Russian opposition figure (according to sources — Stepan Kaplunov). The later SBU version characterizes the same episode as an armed attack on the investigative team by members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and the GUR’s statement about “preventing a terrorist attack” was removed. Thus, two non-matching narratives have been presented publicly: one about a counter-terrorism operation and one about a confrontation between law-enforcement officers and armed individuals. In addition, the official reasons for Hramov’s dismissal have not been named, although the timeline points to a link with this incident; both of these inconsistencies require further verification.

What This May Mean

The coincidence in time of the decree dismissing the head of the relevant SBU department and the high-profile shooting incident, as well as Zelensky’s public assessment of the situation as “shameful,” allow one to assume that the personnel decision is part of the country’s leadership’s reaction to what happened. Nevertheless, since the motives are not specified in the document and the security services’ versions of the nature of the shootout contradict each other, final conclusions about the reasons for the dismissal and the nature of the incident are possible only after the completion of the pre-trial investigation, which is being conducted by the Office of the Prosecutor General and the National Police.