President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 23 replaced the leadership of the Foreign Intelligence Service.
He appointed Oleksandr Lytvynenko, previously in charge of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, a presidential political studies center, to lead the Foreign Intelligence Service.
Lytvynenko replaces Lieutenant General Valeriy Kondratiuk, who was appointed in office in early June 2020.
Lytvynenko, 49, has spent decades in Ukraine’s defense and security establishment.
Notably, in the 1990s, he had graduated from the Moscow-based Institute of Cryptography, Telecommunications, and Computer Science under auspices of Russia’s FSB security service.
Later, he studied law at Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University and at the London-based Royal College of Defense Studies.
Before 2019, Lytvynenko also served as deputy secretary with Ukraine’s National Security Council and as an adviser for the SBU security service and UkrOboronProm, the state-run defense production giant.
The country’s Foreign Intelligence Service employs nearly 4,000 personnel and is meant to enforce the country’s national interests beyond the Ukrainian soil.
