- State affiliation · Ukraine
- Vigil category device · not official insignia
Identity provenance
State affiliation: Ukraine.
Vigil category device — drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role. Not an official insignia.
In brief
Combat formations publicly associated with intelligence and security services (HUR/GUR, SBU). A browsing group, not a command — the two services answer to different institutions (the Ministry of Defence and, for the SBU, the President), each member's actual parent is stated on its own record, and much of this space is deliberately under-documented.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. 3 subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Subordination confirmed
- Sources
- 4 on the record
- Record state
- Partial
- Broad area of activity
- Not territorial. The publicly claimed operations of the members span the Black Sea, the occupied territories and Russian territory to Siberia.
- Notable history
- The full-scale war turned two services built to collect intelligence into organisations that fight. Defence Intelligence (HUR), the Ministry of Defence's service, has publicly claimed the Magura maritime-drone programme, long-range drone strikes and cross-border raids; the Security Service (SBU), which answers to the President rather than the ministry, has claimed the Sea Baby programme, the Crimean Bridge strike of July 2023 and the June 2025 strikes on strategic bomber bases. Kraken, raised in Kharkiv in 2022 in association with HUR structures, sits here on the strength of its documented origin while later reporting places it elsewhere. The grouping exists because a deep campaign run in significant part outside the Armed Forces' branches is a structural fact about this war, and a reader needs to find it.
- Strengths
- The members have demonstrated reach the branch structure has not — the sea denial that pushed the Black Sea Fleet east and the strikes on airfields thousands of kilometres from Ukraine were claimed by these services — and the grouping lets that be recorded without inventing a command over it.
- Limitations
- Everything below the level of public claim: size, structure, stations, the line between claim and independent confirmation, and the current subordination of at least one member. The grouping asserts no shared command and no hierarchy between the two services.
Subordinate formations
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) — combat elementsBranchKRAKEN 1654Special unit · subordination disputedRows are layout only — position and order carry no hierarchy, importance, sequence or strength. Every record shown is an immediate subordinate of the selected organisation.
Assessed as of — 2026-07 Last reviewed — 2026-09-28
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