SBU Instructed to Disregard Ranks

The last link in a chain of high cadre replacements to date was the appointment of Ihor Smeshko as head of the SBU secret police. Prior to this he was First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. President Kuchma signed the edict last Thursday. Two days earlier, he appointed Volodymyr Radchenko (then head of the SBU) to be NSDC Secretary. The latter position had remained vacant for over two months, after Secretary Yevhen Marchuk was made Minister of Defense. That same day, June 27, Ihor Smeshko became First Deputy NSDC Secretary. He is 48-years-old, a Lieutenant General, Ph.D. in technology, and his service record includes the posts of defense attachО with the Ukrainian embassy in Switzerland, Defense Ministry’s permanent representative to several international organizations in Geneva, head of the Ministry’s chief intelligence directorate, chairman of the presidential intelligence committee, and executive secretary of the Ministry’s board of experts. The new SBU chief has three academic degrees in technology (graduate of the Higher Antiaircraft Artillery and Rockets College of Kyiv), military science (National Defense Academy of Ukraine, MA in state military administration), and law (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv). Introducing the appointee at a meeting of the SBU Board, President Kuchma said his highest priority was completing of an SBU reorganization as a legal body meant to protect our democratic state, combat high- level corruption, and enhance the intelligence sector, reports Interfax Ukraine. “The underworld merging into bodies of the state is a new challenge for us. I assign the new head of the SBU and all of you the task of making all necessary inspections and expose such corrupt networks. If incriminating evidence is discovered, you must prepare cases for the prosecutor’s office, regardless of the rank and position of all those involved,” declared the president, stressing that the SBU intelligence service will receive specific targeted assignments, now that the NSDC’s role and functions have been revised, and that the implementation of these assignments will be duly monitored and supervised. The head of state further said that SBU must play a leading role in the nation’s system of struggle against terrorism; the SBU must become more transparent and open to the general public.