KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is planning to remove Vasyl Malyuk as head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the state’s top counterintelligence agency, as part of an ongoing government reshuffle.

The reshuffle has already seen two other top spies — Kyrylo Budanov and Oleh Ivashchenko — shifted to other responsibilities. Budanov has agreed to head the president’s office, while Ivashchenko will be chief of the HUR military intelligence service.

Malyuk is said to be fighting to retain his post.

“There are attempts to remove Malyuk, but nothing has been decided yet,” a Ukrainian official told POLITICO on Saturday. “Talks are still going on. But if Malyuk is out of SBU, this will seriously weaken Ukraine’s ability to protect itself,” added the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

“Malyuk is in his place, and the results of the security service prove it. It was he who turned the SBU into an effective special service that conducts unique special operations and gives Ukraine strong ‘cards’ at the negotiating table,” the official said.

Enigmatic Malyuk, 42, has been managing the SBU since 2023. Since he was officially appointed by the parliament, he has overseen some of the agency’s high-profile assassinations and most daring special operations inside Russia, like the 2025 operation “Spiderweb” in which Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s strategic bombers on several protected airfields, causing $7 billion in damage to Russian military aviation.

Neither Malyuk nor Zelenskyy responded to requests for comment. The SBU press service and the president’s office refused to comment.

Holos Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a Ukrainian MP from the opposition party, said that Zelenskyy did not plan to fire Malyuk, but to offer him a new job. The Ukrainian leader has offered Malyuk a post at the Foreign Intelligence Service, which Ivashchenko used to head, or at the National Security Council of Ukraine, now headed by Rustem Umerov. POLITICO confirmed that information through other Ukrainian officials. 

Before the final decision on Malyuk, Zelenskyy also offered to make Mykhailo Fedorov, currently deputy prime minister and minister of digital transformation, the new defense minister.

“Mykhailo is deeply involved in the issues related to the Drone Line and works very effectively on digitalizing public services and processes,” Zelenskyy said in an evening address to the nation late Friday. “Together with all our military, the army command, national weapons producers, and Ukraine’s partners, we must implement defense-sector changes,” he added.

Fedorov has so far issued no public comments on whether he will accept the new post. The Ukrainian parliament would have to formally appoint him and dismiss Denys Shmyhal, who has served as defense minister and also as prime minister in Zelenskyy’s war-time government. Zelenskyy thanked Shmyhal and said he will stay in the team.

The Ukrainian official quoted above praised the performance of the SBU under Malyuk. “No other security structure currently has such results as the SBU. Why change those?” the official said.

“The Kremlin will open the champagne if Malyuk is dismissed from his post.”