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President Volodymyr Zelensky has fired the head of Ukraine's security agency, the SBU, and the country's prosecutor general, citing many cases of what he called treason within the two powerful organisations.

Spy Chief Ivan Bakanov, and top state prosecutor Iryna Venediktova, were both once considered close allies of Mr Zelensky.

But in a video address the Ukrainian president said he could no longer trust them to carry out their duties effectively because many members of their agencies had collaborated with Russia, with more than 650 cases opened into alleged treason.

The sacked officials, Ivan Bakanov and Iryna Venediktova, have not commented.

How big a move is this by President Zelensky?

Jack Detsch is the Pentagon and National Security Correspondent at Foreign Policy magazine in Washington DC, he says "This is really a call to dismiss two people, who were seen as making the wrong call when it came to the intelligence picture, early in the war. So the Ukrainians really have a reckoning for that now, so accounting for that wrong call at this point, and making sure they can tighten things up on the intel front as they continue to try and weed out corruption, and potentially pro-Russian sentiment within the government.

(Photo credit: Volodymyr Tarasov/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

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