Members of Ukraine’s two foremost intelligence services clashed in the streets of Kyiv, as an interagency rivalry burst into the open to reveal a growing power struggle inside the country’s defense forces.
The shootout occurred early on Wednesday morning after an hourslong standoff between officers of the military intelligence service, or HUR, and the country’s domestic intelligence agency, the Security Service of Ukraine, or S.B.U. The standoff took place outside the apartment of Stepan Kaplunov, a Russian national who has been fighting for Ukraine and is a senior military intelligence commander.
On Thursday, the domestic intelligence agency accused Mr. Kaplunov of plotting an assassination on behalf of the Russian security service, and said he was released after he confessed.
In an interview with local media after he was freed, Mr. Kaplunov and others said his confession was coerced. He said he was seized in the street 10 days ago and taken to an unknown location, handcuffed and blindfolded by people who later revealed themselves as members of the S.B.U., and forced to confess to being a Russian spy.
In Wednesday’s shootout, three members of the military intelligence service were shot and injured, one critically, according to an HUR commander, Oleksiy Serediuk.
The domestic intelligence agency acknowledged that its officers had opened fire upon meeting resistance during a search of Mr. Kaplunov’s apartment.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine reprimanded the people involved and described the clash as an “absolutely shameful event,” in an evening speech to the nation. He said he had ordered an investigation by the prosecutor general into the clash and those commanding the units involved.
“Here in Ukraine, shooting is permitted only at Russian occupiers in defense of Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said. “No other exchange of fire will ever be viewed by our state as something anyone is allowed to do.”
Videos of the encounter and interviews with Mr. Kaplunov and his lawyer, Taras Borovsky, have filled social media channels, as the military intelligence service and its supporters pushed back against the S.B.U.’s account of Wednesday’s events and its claim that Mr. Kaplunov is a Russian agent.
The president’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, a former head of the military intelligence service and a popular former commando who built up its special operations units, echoed Mr. Zelensky’s criticism.
“No one has the right to illegally abduct servicemen or open fire on the streets of our cities,” he said.
Mr. Kaplunov is the deputy head of the Russian Volunteer Corps, a unit made up of Russian volunteers that has been fighting with the military intelligence service since 2023. He had been missing since Aug. 23. Officials had asked the domestic intelligence agency if it was holding him, but did not receive an answer, Mr. Serediuk said.
Mr. Kaplunov’s associates had posted security officers to watch his apartment, Mr. Serediuk added, and raised the alarm when domestic intelligence agency officers arrived in the night. They had brought Mr. Kaplunov with them to the apartment to “conduct alleged investigative actions,” Mr. Borovsky, the lawyer, said in an emailed statement.
Mr. Borovsky said commanders for the two agencies at the scene agreed on how to complete the investigation without hindrance over several hours. But shooting broke out in the street at around 8.30 a.m. when officers from the domestic intelligence agency detained several members of the military intelligence service.
“People stood up for their friends,” Mr. Borovsky said.
Mr. Kaplunov said he was in the apartment when the shootout occurred and was now in the protection of the military intelligence service.
The military intelligence service issued a statement on Thursday saying there was a targeted disinformation campaign underway to discredit it.
Mr. Serediuk said in an interview approved by the HUR command that the clash stemmed from what he called the S.B.U.’s illegal activities, including the detention of Mr. Kaplunov.
He added that he was speaking to the media to counter the S.B.U.’s claims that it had “thwarted a terrorist attack.”
“We can defend ourselves because we are combat officers,” he said, “but now there is a smear campaign against us.”
Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.
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