For a country at war, the State Security Service of Ukraine has odd priorities. Whenever the SBU, as it is known, shows up in the news lately, it is for something dubious or outright scandalous.
On April 25, the SBU searched the offices of Dragon Capital investment bank because it was using Russian-produced employee monitoring software that the law enforcement agency had recently reclassified as illegal spyware.
Dragon Capital bought the software before the SBU reclassified it. Still, the SBU decided it was worth searching Dragon Capital, which says it has raised $5 billion in investment for Ukraine.
It smacked of political pressure, especially since the firm’s CEO, Tomas Fiala, publishes Novoe Vremya, the country’s top weekly news magazine. Fiala is also in the midst of an ownership dispute over Sky Mall with political allies of President Petro Poroshenko, who controls the SBU.
Or take that time on April 24, when SBU detained journalists of ZIK TV channel for attempting to shoot video in a forest close to a military base, and started an investigation for “sabotage preparation.”
A favorite took place on April 9, when a small group of hesitant, paid protesters showed up near the house of anti-corruption activist Vitaly Shabunin, a fiery critic of the government, holding banners that accused him of failing to file an asset declaration — which he actually filed.
Later, activists of the AutoMaidan movement said a top-level SBU official organized the fake protest. How did they know it? The official himself asked them to produce a video of the protest, misrepresenting its target as an anti-Ukrainian separatist. When journalists approached him about it, the SBU official’s intricate explanation was that he was investigating the suspicious protest, not organizing it.
And a bit earlier, in February, deputy head of SBU Pavlo Demchyna asked the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption to investigate Yulia Marushevska, another government critic, for receiving an $18 bonus when she was head of Odesa Oblast Customs Office.
Those are only the most recent cases.
No wonder that SBU is one of the least trusted institutions. A 2017 poll showed that only 11.9 percent of Ukrainians trust the agency. Similar American agencies, the CIA and FBI, are trusted by at least 65 percent of U.S. citizens, according to Politico.
The SBU could capitalize on war fears and the public’s trust if it focused on its mission of protecting citizens. The agency that is Ukraine’s best hope against terrorism and Russian intelligence, instead, chooses to go after government critics and journalists for political reasons.
