Today, January 24, is the Day of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine. The event was introduced by a presidential decree in 2018, UNN reports.
History and modernity
The first attempt to create a full-fledged foreign intelligence unit in Ukraine was made by the UPR Directorate. The unit was created on January 24, 1919.
However, due to the defeat in the struggle for an independent Ukrainian state, the unit ceased to exist.
In October 2004, on the initiative of then-President Leonid Kuchma, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine was established on the basis of the Intelligence Department and intelligence units of the regional bodies of the Security Service as a special state body that carries out intelligence activities in the political, economic, military, technical, scientific, information and environmental spheres.
The first head of the SZR was 32-year-old Oleh Synianskyi. Currently, the service is headed by Major General Oleksandr Lytvynenko.
In February 2019, the new symbols of the Foreign Intelligence Service were approved.
On September 17, 2020, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the Law of Ukraine "On Intelligence". For the first time, the intelligence community, a circle of entities whose activities directly or indirectly relate to the protection of Ukraine's state interests from external threats, has been established at the legislative level. The role and place of individual actors in this community in the performance of tasks to ensure Ukraine's external security, as well as the principles of their interaction with each other, are defined.
The following main tasks are assigned to the SZR of Ukraine:
- Gathering, analyzing, and providing intelligence information to the heads of the highest state authorities;
- Taking measures to counter external threats to Ukraine's national security;
- Participation in the fight against international organized crime, terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal trade in weapons and weapons technology, and illegal migration.
Recall
On December 18, Ukraine celebrated the SBU Military Counterintelligence Day