Russian Spy or Ukrainian Hero? The Strange Death of Denys Kiryeyev

Days after Russia’s invasion, Ukrainian intelligence agents left a corpse on a sidewalk in the center of Kyiv with a bullet hole in the back of the skull.

The dead man, 45-year-old banker Denys Kiryeyev, was killed as a traitor. The Security Service of Ukraine—the country’s primary domestic intelligence agency, known as the SBU—shot Mr. Kiryeyev because he was allegedly spying for Moscow, an agency official said.

Yet days after Mr. Kiryeyev’s body was dumped, he was buried a hero and interred next to Ukraine’s first foreign minister. According to Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, Mr. Kiryeyev had passed on information from his Russian contacts that helped Ukrainian forces successfully defend their capital city last February. “If it were not for Mr. Kiryeyev, most likely Kyiv would have been taken,” the general said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed papers to award Mr. Kiryeyev a posthumous medal for “exceptional duty in defense of state sovereignty and state security.”

For years, Russia invested the equivalent of billions of dollars to infiltrate Ukraine’s political and intelligence circles, seeking to divide loyalties within Ukraine’s spy agencies and to establish a network of agents should Moscow decide to attempt to seize the country. Past decades of political corruption also eroded public trust. Russian officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Kiryeyev at various times appeared to belong to each of the opposing camps. He had traded a career at Western financial institutions to manage money and assets for two wealthy brothers who had close ties to Russia-aligned Ukrainian politicians. The work paid for Mr. Kiryeyev’s real estate, a fleet of cars and vacations in Greece and Paris. It also cast a shadow on his reputation among officials and colleagues worried about Russian influence.

Later in his career, Gen. Budanov said, Mr. Kiryeyev had cultivated ties with European intelligence services, as well as with Russian military and government officials. He also agreed to represent Kyiv in early cease-fire talks between Russia and Ukraine, a risky, high-profile assignment. Mr. Kiryeyev “enjoyed playing the 007 role,” a friend said.

The Feb. 24 invasion tested Russia’s investment and Ukraine’s resistance. Mr. Kiryeyev, who had a foot in both countries, was caught in the middle.

This article was based on financial and intelligence documents and interviews with U.S. and Ukrainian government officials, current and former members of Ukrainian security agencies, as well as Mr. Kiryeyev’s family, friends, bodyguards and business associates.

Moneymaking

Mr. Kiryeyev was born in Kyiv and began his professional life in finance working at the local offices of Western banks, including Crédit Lyonnais, Citibank and ING.

He was thickset and outgoing, and he skillfully handled clients, according to people who worked with him. Mr. Kiryeyev spoke Ukrainian, Russian, French and English.

A relative of his in 2003 became deputy chief of the SBU, Ukraine’s main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, according to a former head of the agency. The connection kindled Mr. Kiryeyev’s interest in espionage, associates said. Critics allege the SBU, now facing government scrutiny, has long been under Moscow’s influence. The agency, which declined to comment, has denied the claim.

In 2006, Mr. Kiryeyev went to work for Andriy Klyuyev and Serhiy Klyuyev, politically connected businessmen from Donetsk, a Russian-leaning region of eastern Ukraine. The Klyuyev brothers, who built their wealth in metals and real estate, were close to Viktor Yanukovych, a politician with Russian ties who would later become Ukraine’s president.

In 2015, the U.S. sanctioned Andriy Klyuyev for his alleged efforts to undermine democracy in Ukraine. Neither he nor Serhiy Klyuyev could be reached for comment.

Mr. Kiryeyev’s widow said her husband had given her a loose explanation for his decision to work with people in Mr. Yanukovych’s circle. “We can’t exchange these people for other people. We have what we have,” she recalled him saying.

During Mr. Yanukovych’s presidency, Andriy Klyuyev served as secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defense council, as well as first deputy prime minister. Mr. Kiryeyev benefited from the Klyuyevs’ connections, taking senior positions at state-owned banks and hunting big game with SBU intelligence chiefs in the Carpathian Mountains, according to associates. He traveled with bodyguards he hired from an elite SBU unit.

Over the years, Mr. Kiryeyev established cross-border connections. On Russia’s Navy Day, he hobnobbed in Crimea with generals from the Russian security services and knew many of them by their first names, according to a friend who joined him there.

In 2014, a citizen uprising against Russia’s political influence plunged Ukraine into a crisis. Violent protests erupted in Kyiv, and Mr. Yanukovych fled to Russia, along with the head of the SBU and more than a dozen top agency officials. The Klyuyev brothers also relocated to Russia, and Mr. Kiryeyev helped to manage some of their assets from Kyiv, according to Mr. Kiryeyev’s associates.

During the chaos, Russia seized Crimea and stirred rebellion in Ukraine’s east. After war erupted between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed militias, Mr. Kiryeyev bought equipment for volunteer brigades fighting on behalf of Kyiv, according to his security chief. He bemoaned to friends and family Ukraine’s inability to reach its potential while hobbled by its powerful neighbor.

When Mr. Zelensky was elected president in 2019, Mr. Kiryeyev was on a shortlist to head a large, state-controlled bank but missed out on the post, according to his widow and banking colleagues. News articles and TV reports raised questions about his loyalty to the country. Mr. Kiryeyev’s widow said he dismissed the reports as slander.

In 2021, Mr. Kiryeyev’s spot in the intersecting spheres of Russian and Ukrainian business and security drew the attention of Gen. Budanov, at the time the recently appointed head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, known as the GUR.

‘I won’t go’

Years earlier, Gen. Budanov, a former commando, had spent time recovering from a war wound at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. He became acquainted with U.S. intelligence officials. In time, he earned the reputation as a reliable interlocutor and counterweight to Russian influence in the SBU, according to a former senior U.S. official.

As Russia began amassing troops on the Ukraine border in the spring of 2021, Gen. Budanov said he summoned Mr. Kiryeyev to Ukraine’s military intelligence headquarters, a compound known as The Island and located on a peninsula along Kyiv’s Dnipro River.

Gen. Budanov appealed to Mr. Kiryeyev’s patriotism, he said, and asked him to use his financial and security contacts to try to infiltrate Russia’s military intelligence. “He had the necessary circle of acquaintances. Financial transactions were carried out through him,” the general said. “That’s why he had communication with everyone, including very influential people.”

Mr. Kiryeyev agreed to go along, motivated by duty and his fascination with the world of secret operations. A security team began driving Mr. Kiryeyev to Kharkiv, 300 miles east of Kyiv. There, he and another Ukrainian intelligence operative would take a separate car across the border, according to Gen. Budanov and one of Mr. Kiryeyev’s bodyguards.

He would return several days later, typically smoking a cigar during stretches of the long ride to brief Gen. Budanov, according to the member of his security team.

“He received information about everything,” the general said. “The world of special services and the world of finance are always connected, like the world of crime, at least in our countries.”

In fall 2021, as U.S. military and spy agencies began warning of the Russian threat, Mr. Kiryeyev learned from his sources that Moscow was readying to invade, Gen. Budanov said, and became the first to sound the alarm in Ukraine.

On Jan. 22 last year, the British Foreign Office said Russia was looking at one of Mr. Kiryeyev’s former bosses, Andriy Klyuyev, to join a puppet government that Moscow would install in Ukraine. In February, with an invasion appearing imminent, millions of Ukrainians began fleeing west to take refuge abroad

On Feb. 18, the night before Mr. Kiryeyev had planned to leave Ukraine for an annual ski trip in the French Alps with his wife and a son, he arrived home late. “I won’t go,” Mr. Kiryeyev told his wife. She tried to change his mind.

“If I left for vacation,” she recalled her husband saying, “I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the eye.” She and her son flew to France without him.

Buy time

Five days later, on the afternoon of Feb. 23, Mr. Kiryeyev handed Gen. Budanov fresh intelligence: Russian President Vladimir Putin had just given orders to invade in the early morning.

Mr. Kiryeyev also knew the main point of attack, Gen. Budanov said.

At 8 a.m. on Feb. 24, low-flying sorties of Russian attack helicopters landed troops at Antonov Airport, several miles north of Kyiv. The Kremlin had planned to commandeer the airport to fly in troops and equipment for an assault on the capital.

Mr. Kiryeyev’s tip gave Ukraine a precious few hours to shift troops to counter the Russian assault, Gen. Budanov said. After a fierce battle with the Russians, the airport was damaged beyond use by the invading forces.

With Russia’s plans for a quick strike foiled, the two sides arranged for cease-fire talks in Belarus. Because Mr. Kiryeyev knew two members of the Russian delegation, Gen. Budanov asked if he would attend. The general was betting that Mr. Kiryeyev’s connections could win a pause in the fighting and give Ukraine more time to mobilize its defenses.

Mr. Kiryeyev knew it would be risky for him to take such a public role in the conflict, and he didn’t want to go. For years, he had cultivated relationships on both sides of the border. The war forced him to declare his allegiance.

“Well, damn it,” he told the member of his security team. “Since the motherland says so, I’ll go.”

Mr. Kiryeyev joined Ukraine’s defense minister and other officials on the negotiating team ready to depart a Kyiv rail station, according to a former SBU counterintelligence official, who assisted the group.

Photos of Mr. Kiryeyev seated at the negotiating table on Feb. 28 surprised many who knew him, including his wife, who had remained abroad. He hadn’t told her.

“After his appearance there, his connection with the special services became obvious to everyone,” Gen. Budanov said. “Unfortunately, the situation then was critical, and we had to take risks.”

Mr. Kiryeyev returned from Belarus and met with Gen. Budanov for several hours. Mr. Kiryeyev was aware of his jeopardy and left the meeting in a taciturn mood, according to the member of his security team.

Days later, a friend visited Mr. Kiryeyev at his home on Kyiv’s northern outskirts. Holding a large-caliber hunting rifle, Mr. Kiryeyev said he had used it to shoot at Russian operatives who had approached his property a few nights earlier, the friend said.

When Russia and Ukraine agreed to a second round of talks, scheduled for March 3, Gen. Budanov again prevailed on Mr. Kiryeyev to attend.

On the night before the negotiations in Belarus, Mr. Kiryeyev received a phone call from the office of Oleksandr Poklad, the counterintelligence chief at the SBU, according to Gen. Budanov. He said that Mr. Poklad, in charge of capturing intelligence and security officers suspected of working for Russia, wanted to meet. Mr. Poklad declined to comment for this article, as did a SBU spokesman, citing a law on state secrets.

Mr. Kiryeyev drove to a Kyiv train station with his personal security crew and military-intelligence agents for his trip to Belarus. He told the bodyguards he might be arrested en route. “Don’t intervene,” he said, according to the member of his security team.

The group drove to the center of Kyiv and stopped near St. Sophia Cathedral. Several minivans with SBU agents pulled up and ordered the military-intelligence agents and Mr. Kiryeyev’s bodyguards to surrender their weapons. Mr. Kiryeyev was directed to a minivan. His security detail lay prone on the street as the van drove away.

About 90 minutes later, the military-intelligence agents were summoned to the spot where they found Mr. Kiryeyev’s body.

Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation, which handles such homicides, declined to comment.

Over the next months, the government in Kyiv rooted out Russian accomplices in the security services. “I don’t have time to deal with all the traitors,” Mr. Zelensky said in March. “But gradually they will all be punished.”

In July, Mr. Zelensky fired the SBU chief and removed or prosecuted dozens of the agency’s generals for their alleged role in facilitating the Russian invasion. Ukraine opened more than 650 treason cases involving government officials.

Mr. Kiryeyev was buried with military honors in Kyiv’s Baikove Cemetery, amid the graves of Ukrainian heroes. His widow briefly returned to the city in December. She visited his grave three times, the last on her way out of the country.