A Russian drone struck the headquarters of Ukraine’s SBU domestic security service in the heart of Kyiv on Friday, targeting the office of its acting chief and injuring at least 12 people, according to Ukrainian officials.

The attack on the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, came just two days after an extraordinary gunfight in the capital between SBU officers and members of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, HUR, which exposed tensions between two of the country’s most powerful security agencies.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the drone had hit the SBU’s central building on Volodymyrska Street, directly opposite Kyiv’s 11th-century St Sophia Cathedral, a UNESCO heritage site.

“The drone was aimed directly at the office of the Head of the Security Service in that building,” Zelenskyy said.

He ordered Oleksandr Poklad, the acting head of the SBU, to prepare retaliation.

“I instructed Poklad to deliver an appropriate, tangible response and, where possible, one that mirrors this strike, to the Russians once everything is ready. Our military will support this response,” Zelenskyy said.

The SBU said Poklad was unharmed and that the attack had failed to achieve its objective, adding that “the Russians will receive a painful response to their blows”.

Later on September 4, Zelenskyy said Ukraine had identified targets for retaliation and that only the timing remained to be decided “for maximum effect”, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Attacks on government buildings in both Moscow and Kyiv are extremely rare as both cities are extremely exposed to drone strikes and fear a heavy retaliation by the other side should they be targeted. Until now there has been an unspoken agreement to refrain from striking the government offices and official buildings.

That norm has led some commentators to speculate that the attack was either a false flag operation by Ukraine itself to justify an attack on Kremlin buildings as part of the expanding tit for tat missile war, or that the attack was actually carried out by the HUR as part of its expanding feud with the SBU that broke out into violence this week. None of these speculations has been backed up by any evidence whatsoever.

An air raid alert sounded in the capital at about 3pm, followed by explosions roughly half an hour later. Initial figures from Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said nine people had been injured and seven hospitalised by 5pm. The casualty count was subsequently raised to at least 12.

Firefighters extinguished a blaze at the site and the building’s exterior wall was damaged.

The strike also caused damage within the St Sophia Cathedral and Related Monuments National Sanctuary. The cathedral itself was not damaged, but windows were blown out in surrounding buildings and the nearby consistory was hit.

Foreign minister Andrii Sybiha described the attack as “a major escalation that demands resolute responses” and called on Ukraine’s international partners to increase pressure on Moscow.

The strike was the first known direct Russian attack on the SBU’s headquarters in central Kyiv and came during the ninth consecutive day of Russian attacks on the Ukrainian capital, which has faced repeated barrages involving increasingly fast jet-powered Shahed-type drones.

SBR HUR gunfight

The timing was particularly sensitive following a shoot-out on September 2 between SBU officers and personnel associated with HUR’s Tymur special unit.

The confrontation followed the detention of Stepan Kaplunov, deputy commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, an anti-Kremlin paramilitary formation composed largely of Russian nationals and operating under Ukrainian military intelligence.

Kaplunov’s lawyer, Taras Borovskiy, told RFE/RL that his client had been ‘abducted’ on August 23 without a detention record or a lawyer present. His whereabouts remained unknown until SBU officers brought him to his Kyiv apartment early on September 2 to conduct a search, Borovskiy said.

HUR personnel and other members of the Tymur unit then began arriving at the scene, where gunfire subsequently broke out.

Three HUR servicemen were injured, according to Borovskiy, including one man whose femoral-area artery was severed by a bullet.

The SBU said its operation was part of an investigation into an alleged Russian intelligence plot to assassinate a Russian opposition figure. It said investigators had uncovered contacts between Kaplunov and Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB.

On September 3 the SBU released a video in which Kaplunov said he had been “approached by an agent acting in the interests of the [FSB] with the aim of recruiting him to carry out active measures to eliminate Ukrainian Defense Forces personnel.”

Kaplunov, who had by then been released, subsequently told Ukraine’s Radio NV that he had accepted the SBU’s version of events only “under psychological pressure.”

Zelenskyy condemned the confrontation between the two agencies, saying: “Both acted in a way that is absolutely unacceptable.”

He said two people involved in the shooting had been formally named as suspects and removed senior officials from the agencies as an investigation began. He had earlier described the gunfight as “disgraceful.”

The episode has revived scrutiny of rivalry between the SBU and HUR, both of which have greatly expanded their operational roles during Russia’s invasion and conduct intelligence, counter-intelligence and clandestine operations.

There is no evidence in the material available that the strike on the SBU headquarters was connected to the dispute between the two Ukrainian agencies. Although speculation to that effect circulated on social media following the unusually precise impact, Zelenskyy and the SBU explicitly attributed the attack to Russia.