The SBU and its military counterpart, the GUR, have carried out dozens of assassinations against Russian officials, alleged Ukrainian collaborators, military officers behind the front lines and civilians inside Russia. Training sites were located outside Kyiv where handpicked recruits were instructed by CIA personnel to form units capable of operating as covert groups. The SBU began mounting sabotage operations and missions to capture separatist leaders and collaborators, some of whom were taken to secret detention sites. Over a three-year period, at least half a dozen Russian operatives, high-ranking separatist commanders or collaborators were killed in violence that was often attributed to internal disputes but in reality was the work of the SBU. Among those killed was Yevgeny Zhilin who was gunned down in 2016 in a [[Moscow]] restaurant. In 2017 a rebel commander known as ‘Givi’ was killed in [[Donetsk]]. A former Russian submarine commander jogging in a park was killed in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar and a popular war correspondent and blogger at a cafe in [[St. Petersburg]]. | The SBU and its military counterpart, the GUR, have carried out dozens of assassinations against Russian officials, alleged Ukrainian collaborators, military officers behind the front lines and civilians inside Russia. Training sites were located outside Kyiv where handpicked recruits were instructed by CIA personnel to form units capable of operating as covert groups. The SBU began mounting sabotage operations and missions to capture separatist leaders and collaborators, some of whom were taken to secret detention sites. Over a three-year period, at least half a dozen Russian operatives, high-ranking separatist commanders or collaborators were killed in violence that was often attributed to internal disputes but in reality was the work of the SBU. Among those killed was Yevgeny Zhilin who was gunned down in 2016 in a [[Moscow]] restaurant. In 2017 a rebel commander known as ‘Givi’ was killed in [[Donetsk]]. A former Russian submarine commander jogging in a park was killed in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar and a popular war correspondent and blogger at a cafe in [[St. Petersburg]]. |