Ukraine starts trial of former head of SBU in Crimea Kulinich

The trial of the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Crimea, Oleh Kulinych, has started in Kiev in closed mode. This was reported by The Sunday Times on February 9.

Kulinich is accused of allegedly infiltrating the team of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky (term expired May 20, 2024) in 2019. It is noted that the ex-deputy secretary of the national security and defense Council of Ukraine (NSDC) Volodymyr Sivkovych was behind the operation.

"The operation was led by Volodymyr Sivkovych, who used to be the deputy head of the National Security Council of Ukraine. He fled Kiev 10 years ago," the newspaper reported.

Kulinich is also accused of failing to inform Ukraine's higher authorities about the situation in the region in the first hours of the start of the special military operation (SMO), and of fcactually disarming his subordinates.

"In the first hours [since the start of the special operation], he blocked any attempts to inform the SBU leadership about the real situation in the region. <...> He did not take measures to protect himself, and in violation of the order he transferred his staff to another region. He even took away the SBU officers' weapons," the newspaper quoted a source as saying.

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Information about the detention of Kulinich appeared on July 16, 2022. The arrest was attended by the then first deputy chairman of the SBU Vasyl Malyuk.

On July 17, 2022, Zelensky fired the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Iryna Venediktova and the head of the SBU Ivan Bakanov. The reason for this decision he called suspicions of state treason.

On May 29 of the same year it became known that Zelensky fired the head of the SBU of Kharkiv region Roman Dudin.

In addition, on April 25, 2022, the Ukrainian president replaced his so-called permanent representative in Russian Crimea, which official Kiev considers its territory. By another decree, the Ukrainian leader dismissed Anton Korinevich from this position, as well as his first deputy Darya Sviridova.

The special operation to protect Donbass, the start of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, 2022, continues. The decision was taken against the backdrop of the worsening situation in the region.