March 26, 2024 (EIRNS)—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today dismissed the head of the National Security and Defense Council (SNBO) Oleskiy Danilov. A relevant decree was published on the Ukrainian president’s official website. The document, however, provided no reason for the decision:
“Today I continued the reboot of our state’s governance system. There are personnel changes. I am grateful to Oleksiy Danilov for his work as Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. He is being reassigned to another area. More details will follow.… In general, I expect strengthening of the strategic capabilities of our state to predict and influence the processes on which the national security of our country depends. We will continue to strengthen Ukraine and upgrade our state system in all areas.” Oleksandr Lytvynenko was named as the new SNBO chief. He has been at the helm of the Ukrainian foreign intelligence service (FISU) since July, 2021, and served as the deputy SNBO head before that.
Of note: Within two hours of the assault on the Crocus City Hall theater outside Moscow on Friday night, March 22, a 14-second video of Danilov appeared, where he claimed for Ukraine the shootings and also taunted Moscow. It was posted at 10:02 p.m. by SprinterFactory@Sprinterfactory. (The video was also reported to have been broadcast on Russia’s NTV.) There Danilov says: “Having fun in Moscow today? I think it’s a lot of fun. I would like to believe that we will arrange such fun for them more often. After all, they are ‘brotherly’ people, and you need to please your relatives more often and visit them more often. So we’ll walk.”
A week earlier, on Thursday, March 14, Danilov had said on the Ukrainska Pravda talk show, in the context of a discussion on the “Russian Volunteer Corps” border incursions: “I want to say that if Putin believed that the war would not come to Russia, he is deeply mistaken. It will come and it will come quite far. And if today they are already beginning to suffer at a distance of 800-900 km, believe me, in the near future it will be thousands of kilometers.”
