Parliament Appoints New Head of the Security Service of Ukraine

The Verkhovna Rada has appointed Vasyl Malyuk as the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), a role he has been acting in since the firing of his predecessor in July of last year.

 The Feb. 7 vote was attended by the President of Ukraine, the Vice President, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and the Prosecutor General.

 A day before the vote, Zelensky called on lawmakers to vote for the 39-year-old, saying: "Given result and the test of a full-scale war, I consider his (Malyuk's) appointment to be fully justified.”

 Malyuk is a Ukrainian political military officer, brigadier general, has a degree in law, and began his service in 2001 in the state security bodies.

 According to his profile on the SBU website, he served in the regional departments of the SBU and held a variety of different positions from an operative to the deputy head of the department to the head of the department for fighting corruption and organized crime.

 Malyuk was awarded the badge of the SBU for Valour.

 In July 2022, his predecessor Ivan Bakanov was fired as head of the SBU. On July 18, Zelenskyy appointed his then-First Deputy Malyuk as acting head of the agency.