Ukraine's strategy of tension
Poklad's many assassinations, 2015-2022. The mysterious murder of pro-Kyiv journalist Pavlo Sheremet.
An anti-Putin journalist is killed in democratic Ukraine. Naturally, blame the Russians. But as the investigation continues, no evidence is found. And soon, even western-funded journalists start finding evidence linking the murder to Ukraine’s own intelligence agency, the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU). A few nationalist veterans are arrested, accused of killing the journalist in a bizarre neo-nazi conspiracy.
No one is convinced, the veterans are kept in pre-trial detention or house arrest but never convicted, and the evidence of links to the SBU continue to emerge.
So naturally, the brave pro-western journalist is forgotten. And the SBU officer keeps on getting promoted. In January 2026, he becomes the effective director of the agency.
Today we’ll be examining a master of provocations. Real assassinations, spruced up with staged ones.
Oleksandr Poklad, appointed in early January 2026 deputy head (real shadow curator) of the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) is something of a cipher for his institution, or even of the country as a whole. A few weeks ago, we examined his life from the 90s to 2014: law, law enforcement, real estate, a stint in prison for extortion, an organized crime group responsible for countless killings.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Poklad made his way to Kiev along with his patron, Ukraine’s richest cop, Oleksandr Pluzhnik. Together, they became close with a number of extremely influential figures in the ‘pro-Russian’ administration of Viktor Yanukovych (president 2010-2014). These accomplices in the shadow politics and business schemes of the capital included one Andriy Yermak, a lawyer from a KGB family who became head of Zelensky’s presidential administration from 2020 to November 2025, micromanaging just about everything in the country over that period.
Now, we’ll see how Poklad put this rich experience to work in the SBU from 2015-21. Though Yermak left his post (at least formally) a few months ago, his protégé Poklad was promoted in January 2026. Many have found it hard not to interpret that as a sign that Yermak’s power structure remains, though the man himself stays in the shadows. Poklad, too, prefers to stay in the dark. Hence, perhaps, he is not the formal head of the SBU, but merely the deputy head.
SBU-KGB
As an aside, there are many precedents to this in the KGB, the organization out of which the SBU emerged. In the late 60s, a gentleman by the name Yuri Andropov was appointed head of the Soviet Union’s KGB. Though Andropov was obsequiously loyal to general secretary Brezhnev, at least then, the wily Ukrainian at the helm of the Union was unable to fully trust anyone that wasn’t from his home turf of the Dnepropetrovsk oblast.
Hence, Brezhnev made sure to appoint two old Ukrainian allies as deputy heads of the KGB. The two, one from Dnepropetrovsk, another who had known Brezhnev from his work in the party apparatus of Moldova, annoyed even the highly phlegmatic Andropov. It was clear to all that the only purpose the two men served was to deliver all important information on Andropov to Brezhnev’s eager ears. Andropov controlled the SBU, but Brezhnev’s trusted deputy heads curated his leadership.
The current head of the SBU, Evhen Khmara, is totally incomparable to Andropov. Where the latter was a masterful schemer from intelligence, Khmara is essentially a flashy frontline fighter. Khmara has a background in the SBU’s military units. Liberal nationalist media likes to speak of ‘two SBUs’ - the good, fighting SBU, and the bad, corrupt, Moscow-infiltrated non-fighting SBU. Khmara is a representative of the first, hence why Zelensky appointed him to be the public face of the institution. Khmara will probably have at least some control over matters such as made-for-media special ops against Russia and the SBU frontline units, but the bulk of the SBU’s activities — extortion of domestic business, counter-intelligence, and all the lucrative meat of the institution — will be under control of the man who lives and breathes it: Poklad.
Poklad is a paradigmatic representative of the second SBU. This was already clear from our last article on him, where we examined his life ‘before the SBU’. Today we’ll be examining Poklad’s career in the SBU, which began in 2015.
The rise of the Agency
First, it’s worth saying a few words about the broader changes in the institutional balance of power that took place in the 2010s.
Poklad first entered organised crime in the provincial oblast of Poltava through — where else — the Organised Crime Unit (UBOP) of the interior ministry. Indeed, back in the 90s and 2000s, it was the interior ministry that was Ukraine’s most powerful law enforcement agency. The great fortress of the siloviki, so to speak.
Back then, the SBU (often called the kontora, or ‘agency’) was a relatively weak, underfunded agency. It partook of various corrupt schemes, naturally, and the CIA began trying to compete with Russian influence in the SBU starting — at least — in the 2000s. But as far as influence over the state and policy, there was no comparison with the interior ministry.
This changed after 2014. The interior ministry was associated by the victorious euromaidan revolution with the ‘Yanukovych regime’. The Berkut riot police were particularly despised for their role in (unsuccessfully) repressing the euromaidan. This police was seen as a retrograde handover from the Soviet Union, another unpleasant reminder of similarity with Russia.
Of course, the new interior minister (2014-21) Arsen Avakov was also one of the country’s most influential men, responsible as he was for creating and curating the Azov batallion and other fascist paramilitary groups. But even that was a sign that the interior ministry was losing power, delegating the monopoly on violence to new, outside forces.
By 2021, the seemingly all-powerful Avakov was removed by Zelensky without any of the strife that many expected. Mass anti-Avakov protests in 2020 and 2021 by SBU agents like Serhii Sternenko played a significant role in topplying the wily Armenian Avakov.
There were larger processes beginning in 2014 that elevated the power of the SBU. Eurofetishist liberals and their fanatical nationalist friends took power as the euromaidan won out in February. And soon after, Russia annexed Crimea, and anti-maidan protests erupted around the east and south of the country. Soon, bloody insurgency and counterinsurgency dominated great cities like Kharkov in the north, Odessa and Mariupol in the south, and the cities and towns of the Donbass.
Hybrid warfare, as the western thinktanks christened it. Counter-intelligence, black ops and black sites. Wet works, muffled shots in the dark.
In other words, this was the SBU’s time to shine. The ultranationalist, anti-Russian Valentin Nalyvaichenko became re-appointed as head of the institution from 2014 to 2015. I wrote here about Nalyvaichenko’s role as the CIA’s intermediary in the 2000s. He seemed to be involved in the training and formation of paramilitary nationalist groups around that time, waiting for the conflagration to come in 2014. Nalyvaichenko was also the literal godfather of the famous fascist paramilitary leader Dmytro Yarosh’s children. Yarosh, like so many other militarized nationalists, was a seasoned SBU asset.
So it was that the SBU has become the country’s most powerful institution. A process begun in 2014, and even further kickstarted by 2022. In July 2025, the size of the SBU increased by another 10,000. Now, 41,000 will serve in it in wartime, and 37,000 in peacetime.
Notably, this bill to expand the SBU was proposed by Roman Kostenko, a premier representative of the atlanticist, ‘Sorosite’ party ‘Holos’. In the past, he was also an SBU colonel. The SBU’s bloody talents are something that Ukraine’s shining pro-european intelligentsia adores. Of course, when it starts throwing them in jail on Zelensky’s commands, as happened in mid-2025, said liberals get angry and start talking about the ‘two-faced SBU’. Such myopia is their choice.
Anyway, all that is to say that our beloved ganster-cop-shadow operator Oleksandr Poklad made a wise career choice in switching to the SBU in 2015. He was perfectly suited for the job. And by 2026, it is not inaccurate to describe him as among the top 5 most powerful men in the country.
A small note here — some claim that Poklad’s appointment to the SBU in 2015 was done on the recommendation of a very special Kievan lawyer. Apparently, Andriy Yermak himself whispered the idea to president Petro Poroshenko. Given the fact that just about every Ukrainian media publication after 2020 constantly talks about Poklad as Yermak’s creature, this is not outside the realm of possibility, though I am unsure what sort of channels of communication Yermak had with president Poroshenko. Still, worth noting.
Promotion
Officially, Poklad joined the SBU in 2015. More precisely, he was appointed head of the newly-created Fifth Directorate — the assassinations squad. This was also the year his license to practice law was cancelled, presumably because he’d switched professions.
In truth, this promotion is rather puzzling. It is somewhat unclear what exact position in the interior ministry Poklad had in the 2010s — as we saw in our last article, he seemed to have several positions as legal aide to politicians and in the interior ministry, but spent most of his time engaging in rather shady politics in Kiev.
According to the journalist Volodymyr Bondarenko, Poklad was serving as head of the tactical intelligence department of the intelligence and analytical center of the Department for Combating Organized Crime of the Main Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in the Sumy region until dismissal in 2010. But in 2015, his position there was reinstated by a court order. Naturally, his brother Serhiy worked there as a senior operational officer.
Poklad’s reinstatement was the result of vetting in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On the Purification of Power”. This law was meant to get rid of ‘pro-Russian traitors’ and such after the 2014 nationalist coup, but it didn’t work very well. I say that because Poklad passed. As we saw in our last article, all of Poklad’s associates and employers were precisely the sort of ‘corrupt pro-Russian schemers’ that the euromaidan was supposedly meant to overcome, but in fact simply entrenched.
Anyway, I think it’s a fair assumption that Poklad didn’t actually begin his career at the SBU in 2015. As the crime-spy media platform ORD-UA writes, Poklad was probably already an SBU informant from back in his 90s days as a small-time cop-cum-large-scale provincial bandit. He may have even been an agent. As you might recall, my last article also went into Poklad’s immense interest in covert recording equipment during his time as a bandit. Just the sort of cadre any intelligence agency would be interested in.
Poklad’s promotion in 2015 would be the first of many. By 2021, Zelensky made him head of counter-intelligence. In 2023, he was one of the deputy heads of the SBU. And in 2026, of course, he became the first deputy head of the SBU, in reality the leader of the agency.
He also maintained connections with the interior ministry. In 2016, a very rare photograph of Poklad appeared. Poklad (top right, with a red arrow) was awarded by minister of interior minister Arsen Avakov for his participation in the battle for Debaltsevo. Avakov, of course, was the patron and creator of the Azov paramilitary. It is no wonder that Poklad found good company among the murderers and extortionists of Azov and Avakov’s interior ministry. Such a photo is particularly interesting, given that Poklad never actually fought at the frontlines, being himself a counter-intelligence officer.
In 2017, president Poroshenko awarded Poklad with the ‘For Bravery’ medal. This is usually given to combat veterans. But Ukrainian presidents have always prized Poklad for other talents.
The killings
Let’s now turn to Poklad’s role as Ukraine’s top wet worker.
Luckily, the western press can help out here. Until 2022, the mainstream media liked to blame all the mysterious murders of pro-Russian figures in eastern Ukraine on Russia itself. After 2022, it was no longer necessary to maintain plausible deniability.
In 2023, the Economist put out an article on Ukraine’s assassination program. The photo shows the 2018 assassination of Aleksandr Zakharchenko in Donetsk, which until 2022 was always blamed on internal Russian disputes. How the times change.
In fact, this article was all about Poklad. Because in 2015, it was he who was appointed to take charge of the following department:
In modern Ukraine, assassinations date back to at least 2015, when its domestic security service (SBU) created a new body after Russia had seized Crimea and the eastern Donbas region. The elite fifth counter-intelligence directorate started life as a saboteur force in response to the invasion. It later came to focus on what is euphemistically called “wet work”.
Valentin Nalivaychenko, who headed the SBU at the time, says the switch came about when Ukraine’s then leaders decided that a policy of imprisoning collaborators was not enough. Prisons were overflowing, but few were deterred. “We reluctantly came to the conclusion that we needed to eliminate terrorists,” he says. A former officer of the directorate describes it in similar terms. “We needed to bring war to them.” In 2015 and 2016 the directorate was linked to the assassinations of key Russian-backed commanders in the Donbas; Mikhail Tolstykh, aka “Givi”, killed in a rocket attack; Arsen Pavlov, aka “Motorola”, blown up in a lift; Alexander Zakharchenko, blown up in a restaurant (pictured).
Here we can see how Poklad’s work experience came in handy. Though Poklad has the nickname ‘the strangler’, his calling card is louder. Just as his former mafia associates were blown to bits in the 2000s, his appointment as head of the SBU’s Fifth Department in 2015 led to another spate of explosions.
There were many other killings unmentioned by the Economist that took place after the creation of the Fifth Department. The so-called ‘Death Squads of the Fifth’ operated around the country, not just in the Donbass. And their victims were not always quite so pro-Russian. In fact, quite the opposite.
