On July 10, 2025, Colonel Ivan Voronych, a senior officer of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU), was assassinated in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district. The attack involved an unidentified assailant who approached Voronych and fired five shots from a silenced pistol before fleeing the scene. Voronych, aged 50, served as a senior operative in the 1st Department of the 16th Directorate of the SBU's Special Operations Center and was reportedly involved in covert operations and sabotage missions inside Russia, including leading a team responsible for eliminating a Russian-backed terrorist and conducting raids into Russian territory. Following the assassination, Ukrainian authorities launched a criminal investigation. On July 13, the SBU announced that it had tracked down and killed two Russian agents suspected of carrying out the assassination after a shootout near Kyiv. Additionally, a Ukrainian cell of a far-right extremist group known as The Base, which has suspected links to Russia and was founded in the US, claimed responsibility for Voronych's killing, describing it as "only the beginning." The group has been reported to offer money for hits and sabotage in Ukraine, and its US founder is suspected of Kremlin ties.