Denis Kireev, a member of the delegation Kyiv sent to engage in the negotiation talks with Moscow earlier this week, was reportedly killed by the Ukrainian security service SBU during an arrest in Kyiv on Saturday, sources in Ukraine have claimed.
Although the official list of six representatives that Kyiv released to the media did not include his name, making his status during the talks unclear, Kireev was photographed on Monday alongside other Ukrainian officials, sitting at the far right of the negotiating table during the first round of peace talks with Russia.
The controversial ex-deputy of the Verkhovna Rada and journalist Aleksandr Dubinsky was the first to inform of Kireev’s death on Telegram, claiming that the agents of the SBU, the Ukrainian security service, killed Kireev during an attempt to arrest him.
Anatoly Sharij, a Ukrainian politician and journalist, gave an even more dramatic description of what had allegedly happened claiming that Kireev was executed – he was shot in the head – near a courthouse in Kyiv.
Citing their own anonymous sources, two media outlets, Ukraina.ua and Obozrevatel, confirmed Kireev’s death later, but Ukrainian officials refused to comment on the incident Saturday.
Ukrainian parliamentarian Oleksiy Honcharenko wrote on Telegram that Kireev was allegedly suspected of high treason, noting that the SBU had clear evidence of that, including his telephone talks.
Ukrainian TV’s Channel 5, owned by former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, claimed last month that Kireev had been investigated by the SBU for purported connections with Russian intelligence services since at least 2020, but argued that the alleged investigation had been called off due to Kireev’s personal connections in the agency.
That report was, however, considered part of the negative publicity campaign conducted against Kireev, who was considered close to the oligarch Andrei Klyuev, an ally of the former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to the Russian Federation.
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