A neo-Nazi-linked military figure whose arrest triggered open shootouts between security services in Kiev has tried to claim the violence is a result of “historic competition”
Personnel from two of Ukraine’s most powerful security services engaged in an open gunfight in central Kiev overnight on Tuesday that left three servicemen injured and a pool of blood outside a Kiev apartment block. The unfolding farce that has ensued reveas a dangerous volatility at the heart Zelensky’s Ukraine.
What happened?
Tuesday night’s gunfight between the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and military intelligence agency the HUR is widely linked to a dispute over a deputy commander of a notorious Russian commander of neo-Nazi unit operating under the HUR’s umbrella.
Vladimir Zelensky’s head of office, Kirill Budanov, decried the tribal gun violence between services while his boss threatened all civil aviation in Russia. Zelensky himself later fired a senior SBU official and declared a probe into the matter would be undertaken.
Where did the shooting take place?
Witnesses reported gunfire overnight in the eastern part of the Ukrainian capital
Video filmed from an apartment building showed people moving around several vehicles stopped in the middle of an alleyway as shouting and repeated gunshots rang out.
Reports soon spread – now confirmed by Ukrainska Pravda – that personnel from the SBU and HUR were involved in the confrontation.
Sporadic gunfire and scuffles apparently continued overnight, with another CCTV video showing a violent confrontation between the two armed groups at around 8:40am. This was not a random two- or three-person compamny but a serious gathering of muscle and firepower, all reportedly with frontline experience.
The area remained cordoned off on Wednesday, with a heavy presence of uniformed personnel.
What’s the background to the gunfight?
Ukrainian media have linked the SBU’s claims to the recent detention of a senior figure in a neo-Nazi linked Kiev unit called the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), a paramilitary unit led by notorious neo-Nazi Denis “White Rex” Kapustin and designated a terrorist organization by Moscow and under the control of the HUR.
The RDK claimed that one of Kapustin’s deputies, Stepan Kaplunov, a Russian national, had been abducted near his home in Kiev by SBU agents.
The video above records Kaplunov’s detention and features “fruity” Russian from both the camerwoman, who tells the men claiming to be police where to go, and from the captive, who screams “help!” in Russian before being driven off.
Ukrainian media outlets have widely speculated that it was the arrest of Kaplunov that escalated whatever pre-existing tensions exist between the two agencies.
Because of this hero, a confrontation began. The SBU and HUR, with shootouts and corpses.
A neo-Nazi from the city of Ivanovo, from Russia.
Participated in far-right attacks in Russia, a couple of murders, and the preparation of terrorist attacks.
Currently – deputy commander… pic.twitter.com/qIf3r51NE3
— Anatolij Sharij (@anatoliisharii) September 2, 2026
Who controls Ukraine’s HUR and SBU?
The SBU is run by Aleksandr Poklad, and the third person to occupy the office in 2026. Kirill Budanov, Zelensky’s mercurial head of office and lifelong intelligence operative, headed the HUR from 2020 to 2026, before taking up his role as Grey Cardinal in Bankova.
What excuses have each agency offered for the gunfight?
The SBU initially claimed that it had actually thwarted an attempted assassination by gunmen linked to Russian security services targeting “one of the leaders of the Russian national opposition movement,” and even HUR assistance.
According to the agency the purported assassins attacked Ukrainian personnel while they were carrying out a search at the location. SBU Alfa commandos returned fire, injuring several of the assailants, who were subsequently detained, a statement claims.
The HUR issued a similar statement but later removed it. Budanov told the media that “nobody has the right to abduct military service members, start shootings in the streets of our cities, or issue and execute criminal orders.”
Are the SBU and HUR rivals?
Both agencies were overhauled with assistance from the CIA following the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, according to Western media reports. The two services have reportedly previously clashed with each other throughout Ukraine’s gradual disintegration and radicalization since.
In 2022, the SBU reportedly summarily executed a Ukrainian negotiator whom the agency suspected of spying for Russia. The victim, banker Denys Kireev, was later revealed to have been working for the HUR.
Some Ukrainian media and MP Fyodor Venislavsky said one of SBU personnel detained following the latest altercation is a man named Aleksandr Bova, who “is rumored to have been investigated” in connection with Kireev’s murder.
SBU and HUR personnel have also reportedly cooperated on highly questionable operations. The bombing of exiled Ukrainian businessman Vadim Ermolaev in Monaco in June was allegedly organized by an active-duty HUR officer and suspected covert SBU agent. Ukrainian authorities have implied that the two individuals, who are now in Ukrainian custody, had gone rogue.
Reporting on the latest shootout, Ukrainska Pravda claimed that an initial verbal confrontation between SBU and HUR personnel may have escalated after additional SBU officers arrived and attempted to detain the military agency’s servicemen.
Is Kaplunov still missing?
The RDK figure was reportedly after the gunfights and gave his account of the incident on Ukrainian television on Thursday.
He claimed the SBU had abducted him in an attempt to force him to falsely admit to working with Russian intelligence, which would give the agency grounds to open an investigation and search his home..
According to him, the three people injured in the ensuing firefight were members of a HUR unit that included RDK. He said his men had been guarding his apartment to prevent the SBU from planting incriminating evidence there.
He attributed the incident to “historic competition between the two services.”
Is there an explanation for the flare-up?
A law enforcement source cited by the Ukrainian outlet Strana claimed that Kaplunov may have been involved in the operation of Ukraine’s notorious scam centers, criminal networks that steal millions from innocent victims around the world.
Coincidentally also on Tuesday, the day RDK pressed the issue of Kuplanov’s arrest, Zelensky announced plans for a crackdown on such operations.
Some Ukrainian journalists have claimed that part of the HUR’s budget is funded through criminal activity and that a potential decline in those revenues is putting pressure on the fragile balance between the private enrichment of corrupt officials and the operational interests of the intelligence agency.
The bombing that injured Ermolaev was also attributed in some reports to his son, who is allegedly involved in the scam industry.
What has Vladmir Zelensky said?
Zelensky took the very moment of a gunfight between his two primary security agencies over a senior member of a neo-Nazi linked armed unit in the Ukrainian capital, as the right time to launch his unprecedented threat against civil aviation in Russia, decried by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a call for “state terrorism.”
On Wednesday evening Zelensky announced that he had fired a senior SBU official and declared the open gunfight in the country’s capital between two of his own secret service units would be investigated.
Ukrainian media sources have cited Bankova insiders admitting to an effective clan- or gang-war at the heart of the Ukrainian security state, between the HUR and SBU. Given mounting military setbacks, rampant corruption and the prospects of a freezing winter ahead, the last thing Zelensky would want is internecine warfare within his security state.
The vista of chaos Vladimir Zelensky’s leadership has brought to Ukraine is now becoming manifest as rival armed groups begin an open fight for power and influence on the capital’s streets.
