Ukraine’s Zelenskiy says investigation underway after clash between two security agencies

Sept 3 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that an investigation would determine what caused a dispute between two of Ukraine’s security agencies to escalate into a shootout in Kyiv this week that left three members of the Defence Ministry’s HUR Military Intelligence Directorate injured.

The dispute centres on the disappearance for nine days of a Russian nationalist activist fighting alongside Ukrainian troops in the 4-1/2-year-old war pitting Moscow against Kyiv.

The nationalist said he was detained by the SBU Security Service and obliged to sign a confession that he collaborated with Russian intelligence. He later retracted the statement.

The street clash occurred in central Kyiv on Tuesday after the activist’s Kyiv home was searched. SBU officers fired on members of the HUR unit. The SBU has said it was acting to prevent a Moscow-inspired plot to assassinate Russian anti-Kremlin activists in Kyiv.

“It is important that the truth come out. And that situations like this do not recur,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

“An assessment of the heads of these two agencies – the SBU and the HUR – will be made based on the results of an internal investigation. It is completely fair that both sides be brought to account. Both acted precisely in a way that should not have happened,” he said.

Two servicemen from the two bodies have been issued notices of suspicion in connection with the incident. Zelenskiy has dismissed the head of the SBU’s department for the protection of state secrets, Oleh Khramov.

(Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)