“Reform of the SBU will lead to its strengthening and improvement of the results”, - the SBU Head Ivan Bakanov stated during a meeting of the SBU Board.

“We prepared a new draft of the Law ”On Security Service of Ukraine”. At the moment the document is being considered by the Office of the President. The Law will direct the SBU reform. It serves as a foundation for renovated special service. I am talking about new operational approaches, which switch from reactive to proactive. SBU has to focus on neutralization of threats, but not to fight against their implications.

Summing up the results of the SBU for 2019, Head of the SBU noted the key achievements: prevention of three acts of terrorism, which could have lead to casualties among civilians; arrest of one of the ISIS leaders - Al-Bara Shishani, who was hiding in Ukraine; uncovering of hostile special service’s agent nets; prevention of over 500 cyber attacks, especially on IT systems of state bodies and critical infrastructure facilities.

Regarding the plans, Ivan Bakanov emphasized that SBU will pay more attention on strategic issues of national security, countering terrorism and counter-intelligence. SBU will abandon its non-relevant functions and powers and will change its human resources management. 

“The new Law provides for considerably higher rate of remuneration.” Salaries of the SBU officers will be definitely higher as well as the level of responsibility. I promise”, Bakanov noted.

Balanov encouraged heads of the SBU regional offices to enhance operative performance and prevent any abuse and violations of employees of secret service.

“The world is changing. I urge you to embrace these changes. There is no other way for us,” Ivan Bakanov added.

During the meeting of the Board, Ivan Bakanov also handed out national and departmental awards to best SBU employees.