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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The GUR and the SBU published opposing versions of the reasons for the shooting.
The commander of the Timur Special Unit of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, Timur, stated that SBU officers opened fire on unarmed representatives of the GUR during the conflict in Kyiv on 2 September. According to him, prior to that, SBU officials abducted one of the combat commanders of the GUR unit and held him without official charges. The SBU, in turn, claims that its urgent investigative group came under armed attack, and law enforcement officers used weapons while suppressing resistance.
“The combat commander of one of the GUR units was abducted in broad daylight, abducted by officers of the Security Service of Ukraine. He was kept without official charges,” said “Timur” in a comment to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The name of the service member nicknamed Timur was not disclosed. It is presumably the deputy commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps for combat operations Stepan Kaplunov. Lawyer Taras Borovskyi previously stated his abduction 23 August.
Timur said that the head of the Alpha special unit of the SBU arrived at the scene, and together with him he attempted to settle the situation. According to him, after the agreement to continue procedural actions in accordance with the law, other SBU officers began detaining GUR personnel and opened fire on them.
“SBU officers who have no relation to Alpha began detaining GUR personnel and opened fire without warning on unarmed people whom I had instructed not to react to any provocation,” he said.
Timur expressed hope that the Office of the Prosecutor General and the State Bureau of Investigation would conduct a “worthy” investigation of the incident.
The SBU has a different version: in the ministry they stated that a group of individuals carried out an armed attack on an SBU operational and investigative team, tried to obstruct investigative actions, and blocked passage with vehicles.
In the morning 2 September the SBU reported that together with the GUR they prevented “an attack that the FSB of the Russian Federation was preparing against one of the leaders of the Russian opposition political national movement” who arrived in Ukraine for Independence Day. The name of the Russian opposition figure was not disclosed by the authorities.
The SBU stated that to stop the assault and ensure the safety of participants in the investigative actions they involved the Alpha special unit of the Center for Special Operations. The agency contends that law enforcement officers used weapons to stop armed resistance, as a result of which people described by the SBU as “those who resisted” were wounded.
President Volodymyr Zelensky 2 September stated that those responsible and personnel decisions by the leaders of the security services should be made regarding the conflict involving the use of firearms between GUR and SBU representatives.
Former GUR head and now head of the presidential office Kyrylo Budanov also urged an investigation of the incident. He emphasized that “no one has the right to abduct service members or to open fire in the streets of our cities with impunity.”
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item ""Стріляли по неозброєних": командир ГУР "Тимур" озвучив свою версію сутички з СБУ в Києві". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ZN.ua.
