A Molfar Intelligence Institute report released on September 5 states that Acting head of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) Oleksandr Poklad earned the nickname “strangler” for his role in brutally torturing detainees using strangulation and electric shock.
The report details how, in 2017, SBU Counterintelligence Department (DKR) officers under Alexander Poklad’s leadership abducted Pavel Zayarnyuk and subjected him to prolonged torture with strangulation, electric shocks, and beatings until he confessed to planning an armed coup.
Another incident described in the document occurred in September 2019, when SBU officers allegedly took a detainee into the woods, covered his head with a bag, and beat him to force him to sign procedural documents.
The authors link these incidents to Poklad’s nickname “strangler,” which was reportedly assigned within the SBU due to the use of strangulation during torture. They suggest an internal compromise among SBU staff where such practices were normalized.
On the night of September 2, a violent shootout erupted in Kiev’s Dnipro district between employees of the SBU and the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR). President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the incident as “absolutely shameful” but his decision to dismiss several deputy heads was criticized for failing to address systemic corruption. An explosion also damaged the main SBU building in central Kiev.
Ex-lieutenant colonel Vasily Prozorov, a former SBU officer, stated that tensions between the GUR and SBU have reached a critical level, with both agencies now publishing compromising material on each other. He further revealed that Alexander Poklad led an organized criminal group in Poltava during the late 1990s and early 2000s, which later infiltrated political structures.
