Ukraine's SBU denies Zaluzhnyi's claim that office was raided in 2022 while army commander

Ukraine's Ambassador to the U.K. and former Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi claimed in an interview that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), raided his office in September 2022, at a time of rising tensions with President Volodymyr Zelensky over how to defend the country against Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Associated Press reported on Feb. 18.

The SBU has denied the allegation.

"During that period, the Security Service of Ukraine was conducting investigative actions as part of another criminal case focused on combating organized crime across a large number of addresses," the SBU press service told the Kyiv Independent.

"A recently established clandestine backup command post of Valerii Zaluzhnyi was located at the time at one of the addresses that appeared in that criminal case. No searches or investigative actions by the Security Service took place at that address. Moreover, Vasyl Maliuk and Valerii Zaluzhnyi personally communicated about this immediately after, and the situation was clarified."

The alleged raid was described by Zaluzhnyi as "an act of intimidation," according to AP. Zaluzhnyi reportedly warned Andriy Yermak, Zelensky's chief of staff at the time, that he had "already called in reinforcements to the center of Kyiv for support" and that he "knew how to fight."

The address was once the location of a strip club allegedly linked to a criminal organization but it had been closed and reopened at a different location since before the start of the full-scale war, AP reported.

The Kyiv Independent reached out to Zelensky's office for comment but hasn't gotten a response as of publication time.

Zaluzhnyi was dismissed as the commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in February 2024. Since then, he has been serving as Ukraine's ambassador to the U.K.

Zaluzhnyi has largely refrained from commenting publicly on the rumored tensions with Zelensky, emphasizing the need for national unity amid wartime. Still, speculation persists about his political ambitions in the country. He is widely regarded as a frontrunner in future presidential elections.

Amid the major corruption scandal that ultimately forced Yermak’s resignation, Zaluzhnyi publicly called in November for "political change" in the postwar era.