The SSU is focused on detaining traitors inside the country and self-cleansing its own ranks. The SSU Acting Head Vasyl Maliuk spoke about this in an interview with Natalia Moseychuk for 1+1 TV channel.

‘We can carry out a lot of mega-successful operations and plan them, but if we have one ‘rat’ on board, who timely informs the enemy, then the entire operational plan is derailed and the staff is endangered... Therefore, my life credo, first of all, is to cleanse the ranks of the Service. Self-cleansing is what we start with. Every working day, every working meeting begins with it,’ Vasyl Maliuk emphasized.

For example, the exposure of the former chief of the SSU Crimea Office Kulinich, who worked for the enemy. Vasyl Maliuk was personally involved in the investigation and detention.

‘It was very difficult. I worked on this issue with only one officer. I call this intellectual counterintelligence. Sometimes, it takes years. In Kulinich’s case, it took more than one year,’ Vasyl Maliuk noted.

The SSU Acting Head also explained how the enemy collected intelligence on Ukraine.

‘There is an office of Sivkovych-Kliuyev in Moscow. This is sort of a ‘mole farm’, if we call things in terms familiar to us. The entity deals with various issues, but its main mission is to collect information on Ukraine. Serving officers of the FSB’s 5th service are also present in the office. They directly cooperated with Kulinich,’ Vasyl Maliuk briefed.

The SSU is cleansing from russian agents, including in the environment of moscow patriarchate’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church. ‘If a person is in a cassock and carrying a censer, it is neither a mitigating circumstance, nor an aggravating one when committing a crime. For example, as an artillery observer in a priest’s robe who adjusted fire at peaceful neighbourhoods. Court sentenced him to 12 years in prison. We exchanged him, he has already gone to the enemy, confirming his belonging to their special services. What does he have in common with God, I wonder?’ the SSU Acting Head explained.

Full version of the interview with the SSU Acting Head is here.