# The GUR-SBU gun battle

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The GUR-SBU gun battle," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-gur-sbu-gun-battle/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The daylight shootout on Shumsky Street in Kyiv, in which Ukraine's two most senior intelligence services, the GUR (military intelligence) and the SBU (domestic security), fired on each other after the SBU detained a GUR officer. John Kiriakou, asked to react on the Sanchez Effect, said he had tried to think of a precedent and could not; he treats the fight as *"the breakdown of the Ukrainian side."**

- **Location:** Shumsky Street, Kyiv
- **Combatants:** Ukraine's military-intelligence service GUR and its domestic-security service SBU
- **Trigger (per Kiriakou/Sanchez):** SBU officers had detained a GUR officer; his colleagues arrived to recover him and a shootout began
- **Duration:** Began at night, continued into the morning
- **Kiriakou's precedent search:** *"I was thinking to myself, there has to be a precedent for this kind of thing. And I couldn't come up with one. I've never heard of such a thing happen"*
- **Kiriakou's reading:** *"It's the breakdown of the Ukrainian side. It really is"*

**The GUR-SBU gun battle** is [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s name for the daylight firefight on Shumsky Street in Kyiv between Ukraine's military-intelligence service and its domestic-security service.

## The trigger

The account Rick Sanchez laid out and Kiriakou reacted to: *"It began at night, continued into the morning hours. It sounds like it was sparked because there was a GUR guy, an agent, he was apprehended by the SBU guys. Remember, GUR is like their CIA. And the other guys got angry. That started this whole battle between them, and before you knew it, you have the two most important security agencies in all of Ukraine in a gun battle in the middle of the street while people are watching this."*[1][2]

## Kiriakou's precedent search

Kiriakou reached for one from his own agency and failed to find one. *"The CIA and the FBI have always hated each other and that's not unusual. In the UK, MI5 and MI6 don't like each other so much. You see this country to country. But to go into a gun battle on the streets, when you first raised this, I was thinking to myself, there has to be a precedent for this kind of thing. And I couldn't come up with one. I've never heard of such a thing happen. It's chaos."*[3][4]

## The reading

*"It's the breakdown of the Ukrainian side. It really is."*[4]

## See also

- [Ukraine](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ukraine)
- [SBU](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/sbu)
- [Volodymyr Zelensky](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/volodymyr-zelensky)

## Sources

1. Sanchez Effect | 'It's the breakdown of the Ukrainian side. There's no rule of law' — John Kiriakou (2026-09-03), at 14:03. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grWxsQp1l3U&t=843s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-09-03-sanchez-effect-sanchez-effect/
2. Sanchez Effect | 'It's the breakdown of the Ukrainian side. There's no rule of law' — John Kiriakou (2026-09-03), at 15:05. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grWxsQp1l3U&t=905s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-09-03-sanchez-effect-sanchez-effect/
3. Sanchez Effect | 'It's the breakdown of the Ukrainian side. There's no rule of law' — John Kiriakou (2026-09-03), at 16:37. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grWxsQp1l3U&t=997s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-09-03-sanchez-effect-sanchez-effect/
4. Sanchez Effect | 'It's the breakdown of the Ukrainian side. There's no rule of law' — John Kiriakou (2026-09-03), at 17:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grWxsQp1l3U&t=1029s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-09-03-sanchez-effect-sanchez-effect/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-gur-sbu-gun-battle/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt