The New York Times reports that a Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) officer, who was recently killed in Kyiv, might have had a role in the assassination of Arsen Pavlov, also known as Motorola, the commander of the Sparta battalion.

Colonel Ivan Voronich, who was fatally shot in Kiev yesterday, headed Ukraine's SBU Fifth Directorate - the unit allegedly responsible for assassinating Arsen Pavlov (codenamed Motorola), commander of Donbas' Sparta anti-tank battalion. The New York Times reports this based on insider information.

Sources indicate Voronich joined Ukraine's security service in the mid-1990s and at one point led the Fifth Directorate, an elite unit conducting sabotage missions in Russia and occupied territories with CIA backing. This same unit reportedly carried out Motorola's killing, according to the newspaper's informant.

Voronich's associates revealed he later worked with units operating in conflict zones after Russia's invasion began. NYT sources allege his team was instrumental in Ukraine's August 2024 incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

The article observes that if Russian operatives orchestrated Voronich's killing, it would mark one of their few successful covert operations since launching their full-scale war over three years ago.

Previous reporting by The Economist linked the SBU's Fifth Counterintelligence Directorate to multiple high-profile assassinations, including those of Motorola, former DPR leader Oleksandr Zakharchenko, and Somali battalion commander Mikhail Tolstykh (known as Givi).