Negotiator killed as suspected enemy spy

Reports former Ukrainian banker who attended negotiations Putin’s delegation in Belarus was double agent for the Russians.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) shot and killed during a member of the Ukrainian negotiating team, Denis Kireyev. Picture: Supplied

A former Ukrainian banker and spy who attended negotiations with President Vladimir Putin’s delegation in Belarus has been killed amid reports he was a double agent for the Russians.

Denis Kireyev, 45, a Ukrainian intelligence agent, took part in failed talks with Russia in the Belarusian city of Gomel last week before being killed later in the week, with conflicting accounts of his death.

According to the first reports, Kireyev was shot dead by Ukrainian domestic security service the SBU, after a wire-tapping counterespionage operation. In this account, the alleged double agent for the Russian GRU military intelligence service tried to escape arrest for treason after passing secrets to the Russians during talks.

“According to sources in political circles, the security service of Ukraine had solid evidence of Kireyev’s treason, including recordings of telephone conversations,” the Ukrayinska Pravda online newspaper reported. When an attempt to arrest Kireyev was made, he grabbed a gun and started shooting at SBU officers, who returned fire and killed him, according to Alexander Dubinsky, a Ukraine MP.

Michael Weiss, a US investigative journalist, said the allegations were “perfectly plausible” because the SBU was heavily penetrated by Russian GRU agents.

Amid the fog of a propaganda war between Russia and Ukraine, the GUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence service, then claimed Kireyev was killed with two others during a “special operation” against Russia. Kireyev also worked in the financial sector with connections to Ukrainian oligarchs sympathetic to Russia. In 2020 he faced allegations of espionage for the Russians.

The Times