OP-ED

Oleksandra Ustinova and Steven Pifer: Getting Ukraine’s security service reform right

By Oleksandra Ustinova, Steven Pifer.

Published March 2, 2021 at 12:48 am

Masked officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in combat gear stand during a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the agency on March 24, 2017, in Kyiv.

Ukraine finally has a chance to create a strong counterintelligence service and shed the Soviet standards of the old KGB. The Ukrainian parliament recently passed the first reading of a bill to reform the Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU.