January 2, 2025: The Ukrainian Police Security Services, or SBU, have become more important since Russia invaded in 2022. This unit was created in 1991 after Ukraine emerged from the demise of the Soviet Union. During its first thirteen years the SBU was regarded as corrupt and largely ineffectual. Reforms in 2014 cleared up the corruption and since then the SBU has been kept busy fighting crime and corruption. By 2023 SBU was even busier chasing down Russian agents and saboteurs.

Five months after the 2022 invasion began, president Volodymyr Zelensky fired the head of the SBU and the chief prosecutor along with over sixty other officials and brought treason and collaboration charges against 651 SBU members and local officials. Most of those charged worked for the SBU.

The large number of people charged is the result of more Ukrainians reporting information leaks and collaboration with the Russians in Ukraine as well as the occupied territories, especially the ones that were seized in the first week of the Russian February invasion. There were also credible complaints from more recent members of the SBU that there were still a lot of SBU veterans who openly criticized government policy and condoned corruption, especially within the SBU.

The SBU is the successor to the Ukrainian branch of the KGB. After Ukrainian became independent in 1991, obvious KGB loyalists were fired but many vets remained and they perpetuated a culture of corruption along with the formidable deception and operational skills the KGB excelled in. The SBU is a large organization, with 35,000 employees. That is the same size as the American FBI, for a country with seven times more people. Equivalent European agencies, like DST in France and MI5 in Britain, are equally small, relative to population, as the FBI. On a per-capita basis Western internal agencies have about 109 agency personnel per million population. For the Russian FSB it is 591 and for the SBU it is about 850. For the pre 1991 Soviet era KGB it was 1,600.

The SBU, like its predecessor the KGB, demanded high performance and discipline. In return, KGB personnel were free to make a little extra on the side, The KGB was literally above the law as the only ones who could arrest KGB personnel were other KGB personnel. The post-Soviet FSB and SBU have similar immunities.

A growing number of the post-199os SBU hires were personnel who, like those who voted Zelensky into office in 2019, saw corruption as a major obstacle to Ukrainian prosperity and independence from Russian influence. Then came the 2022 invasion and NATO military aid and assistance, especially in intelligence collection. This monitored and decrypted (when needed) Russian communications relevant to Ukraine and shared much of that data with the Ukrainians. That data revealed many things, including evidence that turned suspicions of SBU treason into indictments. With leaky SBU members identified it was possible to identify many of their Ukrainian sources. It also sent a message to the SBU that the long sought culture shift in the organization was happening.

Life in wartime is one of extremes in courage and craven behavior. The courageous tend to be the majority, at least on the winning side and that’s where Ukrainians want to be. For Russians the war in Ukraine is all about gaining real estate and population. For Ukrainians the war is all about the survival of the Ukrainian state and its separate identity. Russia has been trying to erase that separate identity for centuries and this is something people in all nations can understand. Ukrainians have openly complained about Russian efforts to regain control of Ukraine after 1991. That’s what numerous independence movements in Ukrainian history are all about. The 2014 uprising of Ukrainians against a president who sold out to the Russians after promising closer ties to Europe and NATO did not end with the resignation of that president. The Russians kept trying and the Ukrainian kept resisting until 2022 when a desperate Russian leader risked another major defeat to force all of Ukraine back into Russia. It’s another example of the irresistible force going against the immovable object and, like the Germans in 1941, irresistible is often not enough.

Once the Russians invaded SBU became patriotic and very effective. SBU was responsible for developing Ukrainian naval drones, which were a key factor in the destruction of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in 2023 . SBU has also been successful at finding and arresting Ukrainian officials guilty of corruption during wartime. Most of those caught had engaged in corruption before the Russians invaded in 2022.

Even before the 2014 reforms there were occasions when the SBU was effective. In 2009 SBU operatives arrested three men trying to sell 3.6 kg of plutonium for $10 million. It turned out that they did not have plutonium, but the less radioactive and not suitable for nuclear weapons Americium which could be used for a dirty bomb. Those arrested included a politician and two businessmen from Western Ukraine. These men had obtained the radioactive material, which was originally produced inside Russia, from someone outside Ukraine.

This incident is typical of dozens that have gone down since the end of the Cold War in 1991. Most of the nuclear material being peddled is not weapons grade. But since 1993, there have been over two dozen instances of smugglers caught with weapons grade uranium or plutonium.

Thefts of non-weapons grade material have been reported in many countries around the world since the end of the Cold War. What's amazing is that Islamic terrorists have not yet obtained any of this stuff and used it to set off a dirty bomb which consists of explosives surrounded by radioactive material. When detonated this makes radioactive, and uninhabitable, the blast area.

Since the end of the Cold War, and the dismantling of over 20,000 nuclear weapons, there has been over three tons of additional nuclear fuel sitting around. Nuclear material cannot be destroyed and remains radioactive for thousands of years. Several terrorist organizations and nations are known to be in the market for this weapons grade nuclear material, and don't care what the source is. Criminal organizations are active in trying to develop the trade. Only an enormous amount of police and intelligence work prevents a more active illegal trade in nuclear material.

But there is a hundred times more, less radioactive, material around. These less potent substances are used in hospitals and for manufacturing or food processing work. This is what can be used for dirty bombs. There is a black market for this material as well, but no terrorists have, so far, gotten some and used it.