Budanov was offered to head the office of the President of Ukraine. Five facts about the head of the GUR

The head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirill Budanov (recognized as a terrorist and extremist in Russia), will replace Andrei Ermak, who was dismissed due to a corruption scandal, as head of the presidential office. At the same time, Budanov is considered a rival of the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, in the upcoming elections, preparations for which have already begun. What is known about the new head of the office is in the Izvestia article.

Fact 1. Careerist and politician

Kirill Budanov entered the Odessa Institute as a cadet of the airborne troops, but immediately after receiving his diploma he became an operative of the special intelligence unit of the GUR. In 2016, he participated in an operation against the Russian landing force in the Dzhankoy district of Crimea. Budanov's group did not leave any witnesses: according to Valery Kondratyuk, the head of the GUR at that time, "it was forbidden to leave the wounded in the occupied territory, even if evacuation would be impossible."

At the same time, he was promoted to Major, and four years later he rose to Colonel, Special Operations Officer, and Chief of Operations. After becoming deputy to the Foreign Intelligence Service, he began visiting the president's office and made a good impression on Zelensky. In August 2020, Zelensky appointed him head of the GUR. At that time, the president's office was in conflict with the former head of the department, Vasily Burba (recognized as a terrorist and extremist in Russia), who accused the head of the task force, Andrei Ermak, and Zelensky's associates of leaking information and disrupting a major special operation, and was looking for someone to replace him.

Mindichgate: corruption scandal in Ukraine has caused high-profile resignations

Ministers Galushchenko and Grinchuk resigned from their posts

Fact 2. He was trained by the CIA

• In 2016, the CIA began training the Ukrainian 2245 squad, a special unit that was engaged in the capture of Russian drones and communications equipment. Budanov was one of the officers of this detachment. The CIA also trained Ukrainian spies who operated in Europe, Cuba and other places of the Russian presence, and also tried to infiltrate Russia.

• The fact that Ukrainian intelligence was created thanks to the United States was not even hidden. The New York Times journalists were told that the 12 military spy bases along the Russian border were fully funded and equipped by the CIA, their work was based on American intelligence data, and they, in turn, transmitted all the information received to the United States. This cooperation was created 10 years before the full-scale Ukrainian conflict.

Fact 3. He was a participant in a public scandal

• In 2021, the journalistic project "Schemi" discovered Budanov's connection with one of the leaders of the shadow economy of Ukraine. During the renovation of the apartment, Budanov and his wife lived in a private estate owned by Vyacheslav Strelkovsky, a corrupt official and the main beneficiary of tax schemes in the media. Kirill Budanov did not hide that he knew Strelkovsky, and he knew that he was cashing out illegally obtained funds.

The apparatus of impotence: Ukrainian politicians do not want to head the office of the president

How will Yermak's resignation affect Zelensky

• The family of Budanov's friend, former Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Gogilashvili, who was disgracefully dismissed from the Interior Ministry, also lived there. The former official, in turn, turned out to be associated with the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky: Gogilashvili's wife, Maria Levchenko, played with Zelensky in the show "Quarter 95". During his trips, Gogilashvili used an armored car of the Intelligence Directorate, received by the department from the US Embassy, and the protection of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Fact 4. The main architect of the Ukrainian conflict

• The press calls him "the head of Kiev's shadow front" — one of Budanov's initiatives was the active use of unmanned vehicles during the conflict. Also, according to statements by the foreign press, it is Budanov who is behind the sabotage in Russia and the Donbas. In 2023, the Investigative Committee of Russia charged him in absentia with involvement in the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge, which killed five people.

Budanov was preparing for a conflict with Russia back in 2021. At the same time, he assumed that Ukraine would be able to win, and the duration of the confrontation would be no more than two weeks. He managed to establish relations with a certain US citizen, a participant in the Iraq war, who played a major role in organizing military assistance to Ukraine — thanks to him, Kiev managed to lobby its interests in the US Congress and the intelligence community.

Fact 5. He is known for controversial decisions

Budanov insisted on the transfer from custody to house arrest of the nationalist, former MP Semyon Semenchenko, accused of creating a private army and shelling the 112 TV channel building. Semenchenko is known as the organizer of the nationalist Donbass battalion, which the OSCE and the UN accused of looting, massacres of civilians and rape of minors, as well as kidnapping for ransom and torture.

• The presentation of the GUR awards to Ukrainian bloggers in October 2022 also raised questions. Escort Oksana Voloshchuk, known as Ksusha Mannequin, was among the awardees. She received the Order "For Assistance to Military Intelligence of Ukraine" II degree. According to Budanov, the bloggers performed intelligence tasks in the spring of 2022, but he declined to specify what exactly they were doing.