Every year on March 25, Ukraine celebrates the Day of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU). For most, it is just another date on the calendar, but there is a whole story behind it - from the collapse of the Soviet Union to modern hacker attacks and real losses in the Donbas.
Ukrainian News tells when and how the SSU appeared, what little-known facts about it are worth knowing and why this holiday concerns every Ukrainian.
The law was written according to CIA and FBI textbooks, and the first staff consisted of a dozen people
The Security Service of Ukraine appeared immediately after the declaration of independence. On September 20, 1991, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a resolution on the creation of the National Security Service of Ukraine - thus a new page began after the liquidation of the Soviet KGB of the Ukrainian SSR. And already on March 25, 1992, the parliament adopted the law "On the Security Service of Ukraine", which established its legal status.
Interestingly, the first head of the SSU, Yevhen Marchuk, initially had only 10-12 people under his command. At the same time, the law on the new service was not developed from scratch - it was based on American laws on the CIA and FBI. Colleagues from Great Britain, Germany and Switzerland helped in this work. This was the only case in history when the head of the SSU was elected by parliament - later these powers were given to the President.
180,000 volumes of secrets and documents that are over a hundred years old
One of the least known pages of the SSU is its archive. The State Archive of the Security Service stores about 180,000 volumes of various materials. The oldest are dated 1918 - that is, documents that are over a hundred years old, and are still under protection. Each volume can contain dozens of individual documents.
The "top secret" stamp was removed from the documents of the Soviet special services stored in the SSU archive only in 2015. Until then, materials for the entire Soviet period - from 1918 to 1991 - remained classified. This step became part of the general policy of openness and decommunization.
Every third SBU employee went through the war
The tragic events after 2014 radically changed the Security Service of Ukraine. Almost 9,000 SSU employees went through hostilities - and this is every third person in the structure.
The first Ukrainian serviceman to be killed in Donbas was exactly an SSU employee - Hennadii Bilichenko. He was killed on April 13, 2014 near Slovyansk. In total, 26 Security Service servicemen were killed during the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) and Joint Forces Operation (JFO).
Another important fact - in 2018, Liudmyla Shuhalei became the first female serviceman in Ukraine to receive the rank of general. Head of the Military Medical Department of the SSU, she received the rank of Major General of the Medical Service by decree of President Petro Poroshenko.
How and when the holiday itself appeared
SSU Day as an official professional holiday appeared in 2001 - by decree of President Leonid Kuchma. The date was chosen as March 25 - it was then, in 1992, that the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law on the Security Service. The holiday is official, but a day off is not made in its honor.
On this day, official events are held throughout the country: awarding employees, presenting government certificates, assigning new ranks. An entire block in the center of Kyiv at 33, Volodymyrska Street is the main office of the SSU with all departments and auxiliary structures. And since 2015, a sculpture "Cossack-winner" has appeared near the building - a symbol of victory over the evil that threatens Ukraine.
Over 100 partners around the world - and Ukraine among the key players
The SSU is not a closed structure. The service cooperates with more than 100 law enforcement agencies and special services of 60 foreign countries. In addition, it interacts with 63 specialized structures within international organizations - NATO, EU, OSCE, UN and others.
Today, the SSU operates in a hybrid war environment, where threats lurk not only on the front lines, but also in cyberspace, information attacks and economic sabotage. The service has repeatedly neutralized large-scale hacker attacks on state institutions and critical infrastructure - and although the details of such operations rarely become public, the results speak for themselves.
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