Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, has publicly described an alleged 2022 incident in which officers from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) entered a temporary military command facility linked to him in Kyiv. The account was given in an interview with the Associated Press and comes amid long-standing reports of strained relations between Zaluzhnyi and President Volodymyr Zelensky during the early phases of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

According to Zaluzhnyi, the incident occurred in mid-September 2022, at a moment when Ukraine was carrying out a successful counteroffensive in the northeast. After leaving a tense meeting at the presidential headquarters, he went to a provisional General Staff command post in Kyiv. Later that evening, dozens of officers from the SBU reportedly arrived to conduct what he described as an unannounced search. Zaluzhnyi said the officers did not clarify the purpose of their actions and that he refused to grant access to documents or computer systems. He also stated that more than a dozen British officers were present at the site at the time.

Zaluzhnyi characterized the episode as intimidation and said it risked exposing internal divisions at a critical moment for national unity. During the incident, he contacted Andrii Yermak, who was then head of the President’s Office, warning that he was prepared to deploy military forces to prevent the search and protect the command center. He also called Vasyl Maliuk, who led the SBU at the time. According to Zaluzhnyi, Maliuk said he was unaware of the operation and promised to look into the matter.

Court documents reviewed by the Associated Press indicate that, two days before the incident, the SBU had requested a search warrant for the same address as part of a separate investigation targeting organized crime. The warrant reportedly referred to a strip club allegedly linked to a criminal group. However, employees at the site told AP that the club had closed before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Zaluzhnyi said he believes the warrant served as a pretext and that the security service could not have mistakenly targeted a location used as a senior military command post.

The SBU has rejected Zaluzhnyi’s version of events. In a statement to the Kyiv Independent, the service said it was carrying out investigative actions related to a different criminal case across multiple addresses. According to the SBU, a clandestine backup command post associated with Zaluzhnyi was located at one of the addresses mentioned in that case, but no searches were conducted there. The service added that Maliuk and Zaluzhnyi discussed the situation directly at the time and that the matter was clarified. The SBU denied that any investigative actions were carried out at Zaluzhnyi’s command location.

The Associated Press reported that neither the SBU nor the Office of the President provided comments directly addressing Zaluzhnyi’s claims, and the agency said it could not independently verify his account. The Kyiv Independent also sought comment from Zelensky’s office but received no response before publication.

Zaluzhnyi has rarely spoken publicly about his relationship with Zelensky since leaving office. In the AP interview, he said disagreements over military strategy emerged soon after Russia launched its invasion in February 2022 and continued throughout the war. While he has avoided direct political statements, he acknowledged a deep rift with the president, stressing that he did not want to undermine unity during wartime. Nevertheless, speculation about his future political ambitions persists, with Zaluzhnyi widely seen as a potential contender in postwar presidential elections.

After his dismissal as commander-in-chief in February 2024, Zaluzhnyi was appointed Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. In November of that year, amid a major corruption scandal that led to Yermak’s resignation, he publicly called for political change in the postwar period. In mid-January, Zelensky met with Zaluzhnyi and other prominent figures as part of what the President’s Office described as a new approach focused on openness and engagement.

In the same AP interview, Zaluzhnyi also criticized the handling of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive. He said the plan, developed with NATO partners, failed because the necessary resources were not allocated by Zelensky and other officials. The original strategy envisioned concentrating forces in a decisive strike through Zaporizhzhia Oblast toward the Sea of Azov to sever Russia’s land corridor to occupied Crimea. Instead, Zaluzhnyi said, Ukrainian troops were spread along a wide front, reducing their impact. Two Western defense officials, cited anonymously by AP, supported his description of how the operation diverged from the initial plan.

Zaluzhnyi previously argued that by autumn 2022 the war had become largely positional due to shortages of equipment and personnel, limiting Ukraine’s ability to achieve a breakthrough. Zelensky later countered that elements of the 2023 counteroffensive plans had been known to Russia in advance.