The President's dismissal of Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova and head of the SBU Ivan Bakanov does not mean their dismissal, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Andrey Smirnov said during a telethon, adding that service inspections will be conducted, after which the President will decide whether to make the appropriate submissions to parliament.

"Right now it is not a question of firing the two officials yet. We are talking about the fact that the Prosecutor General is suspended from his position, and the head of the SBU is temporarily suspended from his duties. This is due to the fact that the President and we have all been waiting for more specific and possibly radical results from the heads of these bodies to cleanse them of collaborators and state traitors," he said.

Smirnov noted that on the current state of war, these law enforcement agencies continue to identify collaborators almost weekly, so "to prevent the potential influence of Bakanov and Venediktova on the criminal proceedings being investigated against employees of these two institutions suspected of collaborating with the aggressor country, the President has taken appropriate decisions to suspend and remove them from office."

Smirnov explained the difference in the wording of the presidential decrees by the fact that the Prosecutor General is "suspended" according to the President's right to remove from office an official who is appointed and dismissed by him.

At the same time, he added that Bakanov's removal from office was prescribed by the Disciplinary Regulations of the AFU, as the head of the SBU is a military man.