The agency was viewed negatively by the Ukrainian public for much of its history, as it was widely regarded as corrupt and was best known for arresting and intimidating political dissidents.

[7] The Security Service of Ukraine is vested, within its competence defined by law, with the protection of national sovereignty, constitutional order, territorial integrity, economical, scientific, technical, and defense potential of Ukraine, legal interests of the state, and civil rights, from intelligence and subversion activities of foreign special services and from unlawful interference attempted by certain organizations, groups and individuals, as well with ensuring the protection of state secrets.

[8] Other duties include combating crimes that endanger the peace and security of mankind, terrorism, corruption, and organized criminal activities in the sphere of management and economy, as well as other unlawful acts immediately threatening Ukraine's vital interests.

According to British political expert Taras Kuzio the organizational structure of SBU remains bloated in size compared to its predecessor, the Soviet Ukrainian KGB, with the total number of active officers being as high as 30,000 personnel.

The commission was formed on the decree of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine and later adopted on May 30, 1919, by the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.

To support the Soviet government in Ukraine, in Moscow was formed a corps of special assignment with 24,500 soldiers as part of the All-Ukrainian Cheka.

In its early years the security agency fought against the "kulak-nationalistic banditry"[14] (peasants who resisted having their land confiscated and being forced into collective farms).

[10] The last Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic's Branch head Colonel-General Nikolai Golushko stayed on as chairman of the newly formed Security Service of Ukraine for four months before moving to Russia.

A notorious incident took place in December 1995 in Western Ukraine when a local citizen Yuriy Mozola was arrested by SBU agents, interrogated and brutally tortured for three days.

Later, the SBU played a significant role in the investigation of the Georgiy Gongadze murder case,[17] the crime that caused the Cassette Scandal itself.

In 2004, General Valeriy Kravchenko, SBU's intelligence representative in Germany, publicly accused his agency of political involvement, including overseas spying on Ukrainian opposition politicians and German TV journalists.

[citation needed] An episode of human rights abuse by SBU happened during the case of serial killer Anatoly Onoprienko.

The rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv Borys Gudziak heavily criticized a visit from the SBU, forcing Khoroshkovskiy to apologize.

Later the head of the Kyiv Bureau of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Nico Lange, was detained for a short while and released only after several high-ranking officials from the German Chancellery vouched for him.

[citation needed] The President's spokesperson, Hanna Herman, in an interview with this newspaper, did not dispute that Dmytro Firtash was one of the sponsors of the Presidential Party of Regions, with the help of which Khoroshkovskiy was appointed to the position of the State Security chairman.

... My knowledge is much wider than most of those who work here.When Minister of Finance Fedir Yaroshenko resigned on January 18, 2012, Khoroshkovsky replaced him in the post on the same day.

[29] On May 22, 2012, Volodymyr Rokytskyi, Deputy Head of the SBU, was photographed in public wearing a $32,000 luxury wristwatch despite the fact that its price amounts to his yearly official income.

[34] After the overthrow of Yanukovich in the Revolution of Dignity the new SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko claimed to have found his new office building empty, saying "the agency's former leadership had all fled to Russia or Crimea.

[33] Allegedly in the months following the Revolution of Dignity thousands of Ukrainian spies switched sides and began reporting to Russia during the 2014 Crimean crisis and the pro-Russian unrest in east and south Ukraine.

[33] In June 2015, the Kyiv Post reported that a deputy chief of the SBU, Vitaly Malikov, had supported events leading to the annexation of Crimea.

[35] According to February 2016 official figures of the Ukrainian parliamentary Committee on National Security, after Russia's annexation 10% of SBU personnel left Crimea.

[37] In 2016, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reported that the SBU operates secret detention facilities where civilians are held incommunicado being subjected to improper treatment and torture.

[43][44][45] On July 8, 2019, the SBU announced that they conducted a raid into Donbass to apprehend Vladimir Borysovich Tsemakh, who was head of the air defense in Snizhne and a 'person of interest' when a Buk missile launcher was used to shoot down MH17.

[48][49] He was known to head the anti-terrorist division who had played a prominent role in negotiating ceasefires and prisoner exchanges with Russia-backed militants in Eastern Ukraine.

[48] He had planned the future assassination of Adam Osmayev, a Chechen in the International Peacekeeping Battalion named after Dzhokhar Dudayev which is defending Ukraine against Russia aggression.

[52] The SBU, with help of the American NSA and CIA, also broke through the Russian encrypted cellphone services, intercepting phone calls to find valuable targets or other useful intelligence.

[53] They also published many supposed intercepted phone calls on their website, showing morale issues or admissions of war crimes by Russian troops.

[61] While a long-time associate and personal friend of Zelenskyy, Bakanov was accused of allowing treason and collaboration of SBU agents with Russia, and failing to uproot them.

SBU said it was also responsible for the killing of a high-ranking officer in the GRU military intelligence service, who was assassinated outside his house in a village in the Moscow region.

[69] In December 2024 the head of the Russian army’s chemical weapons division Igor Kirillov was killed by an explosive device attached to a scooter outside an apartment building in Moscow.