General Kirill Budanov, 37, head of Ukraine's military intelligence, poses in his office in Kiev, February 15, 2023. Photo: Laurent Van Der Stock/Getty Images
Sitting in a dark office, the Ukrainian head of Ukrainian intelligence looks silently into the lens of the camera.
Plans Love Silence, a 30-second video released ahead of Ukraine's counteroffensive, bears the title.
This was the last time the world saw Major General Kirill Budanov before Russia claimed he was critically wounded in a missile attack on his military intelligence headquarters in Kiev.
His current condition is unknown, aides said. He is alive and well in The Telegraph, but no photographs have been released to confirm this.War tends to act as a springboard, helping young and ambitious people move through the ranks faster than they would otherwise.< /p>
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Major General Budanov, as a young officer, became the youngest two-star general in Ukraine thanks to covert operations during the war in Donbass in 2014.
The 37-year-old attacker became famous for leading operational groups across the border into rebel-held territory to neutralize helicopters.
During one mission in August 2016, his unit came across members of Russia's elite Vympel special forces. groups.
In an interview, Major General Budanov said that the battle lasted two minutes, as the Ukrainians destroyed the enemy forces along with their commander.
He was wounded three times, once when a shrapnel hit him right under the heart.
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The current conflict has transformed him from a domestically respected operative to Moscow's top target.
«Creative and shocking» methods
At 37, the master of the spy ring has earned a reputation as an «incredibly ruthless» military figure. head of military intelligence.
Without disclosing exact details, he confirmed that his agents killed Kremlin propagandists.
Secret Pentagon documents leaked on the messaging platform Discord credit him with plans for «mass strikes» inside Russia on the anniversary of Moscow's invasion.
And then there are references to anti-Kremlin Russian brigades that carried out daring cross-border raids into the Belgorod region of Russia.For Major General Budanov's HUR, it doesn't matter that the men sent are notorious far-right extremists. Kiev just ironically says that these fighters are fighting for independence referendums, using the same justification that Russia gave when its “little green men” appeared in Crimea in 2013.
“This is not the guy who adopts the usual espionage etiquette,” Professor Mark Galeotti, author of Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine, told The Telegraph. >
The methods used by Major General Budanov and his agents have been described as creative and shocking.
Reports are coming in of pensioners being blackmailed into attacking military registration and enlistment offices in Russia, and youth being forced to set fire to railway infrastructure.
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The head of military intelligence recently stated that the acts of sabotage were committed «almost 100% by Russian citizens.» Russian Federation.
Fighting Russia
Several influential pro-military figures have been killed or injured by explosives planted on Russian soil since February last year.
Vladlen Tatarsky, a pro-Russian military blogger, was killed by a bomb hidden in a statue given to him by another Russian as a reward.
Ukraine was almost immediately accused of a strike; a kind of creepy joke about the rewards owed to those who revel in the violence that has befallen Ukraine.
Kiev tried to brush off the accusations, claiming that Tatarsky's death was part of a feud between Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose St. Petersburg cafe was destroyed in a terrorist attack, and the Russian Defense Ministry.
In the case of Daria Dugina, another pro-war blogger and the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist, Major General Budanov, more bluntly.
“All I will comment is that we have killed Russians and will continue to kill Russians anywhere in the world, until the complete victory of Ukraine,” — he said.
«Don't ask, don't tell»< p>Despite the obvious risk of escalation, Major General Budanov has been given the right to run his agency largely as he sees fit.
He has a unique rapport with Volodymyr Zelensky. No details are given to the president, and he does not ask questions. The less Mr. Zelensky knows about his operations, the better.
This approach gives his boss a plausible deniability of any attacks on Russian soil.
“He absolutely provided Budanov with a kind of political card.” blanche,” said Professor Galeotti.
James Rushton, an independent foreign policy analyst in Kiev, added: «Budanov runs his agency in his own way, and the Ukrainian government has clearly given him considerable leeway in this regard because of how effective HUR has become.»
< p>But often Major General Budanov also knows little about the latest plot to cause havoc on the enemy's border.
He has complete confidence in his agents and is more interested in results than their methods, analysts say. .
But each attack is created with the intelligence chief in mind; project Ukraine's influence onto the world stage.
Even before the Russian invasion, Major General Budanov emphasized impressing Kiev's Western allies with his global reach.
«Integral to this were attacks on Russian assets, especially Wagner, wherever he can find them,” said Professor Galeotti.
«But also emphasizing to the West that Ukraine was serious, and therefore the support from the West was not only charitable, but also because Ukraine can be a very powerful and useful ally.»
< p>But he is balancing on a fine line what many of Kiev's Western backers see as acceptable.
American fans
The United States is believed to have intervened to stop attacks on Russian targets in Russia, Moldova, and the Middle East.
They say that in 2021, Major General Budanov was behind a special operation to arrest Wagner mercenaries. luring them to a plane that could be shot down over Kiev.
He later planned covert attacks on Wagner assets in Mali and Syria.
Recently, he polled the Moldovan government against the Russian-backed authorities in the breakaway enclave of Transnistria.
All these pre-war plans were stopped by President Zelensky out of concern that it could anger Russia and other governments.
Nevertheless, these plots earned Major General Budanov fans among the US intelligence apparatus, even if they really annoyed politicians concerned about the worsening relations with Moscow.
From the leaked documents, it became clear that the US was monitoring his communications.
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Beware of being followed, the Ukrainian often turns on music or static in his office at HUR headquarters in Kiev.
Secrecy is also part of his elaborate public image.
During the interview, coded messages often appear on his desk.
In one published photograph, Major General Budanov, a book about Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, sits next to a chessboard and offers a glimpse into his sources of inspiration. . The Mossad hunted Hamas fighters for decades after the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes in 1972 — as Major General Budanov promised.
This caused a certain paranoia in Russia regarding the young intelligence chief.
More than 10 unsuccessful attempts were made on him. One, in 2019, was thwarted only due to the premature detonation of explosives under his car.
The Kremlin ordered the Lefortovsky District Court of Moscow to issue an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian for “organizing terrorist attacks.”
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And then there was a long-range rocket attack on Kiev on May 29.
A video posted on social media following the strike shows a rocket falling into the water near a building in the Ukrainian capital. Although the building was not destroyed, it was visibly damaged by the impact.
Kremlin-friendly sources took the opportunity to say they finally got their man by killing Major General Budanov.
Earlier this week, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti downgraded his death rating, saying that he was flown to Germany to be treated for his injuries.
Despite these allegations, Major General Budanov's spokesman told The Telegraph. Wire that his boss is “fine.”
“The fact that Russia has deployed its most expensive and supposedly capable weapon system, Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles, in an attempt to kill him is a testament to how just he is a thorn in the side of the Kremlin,” Mr. Rushton said.
On Saturday, Russian media, citing the German magazine Stern, reported that Budanov was in a coma with brain damage in the hospital. But there was no such article in the magazine.
Whether Mr. Budanov will actually be wounded, or he will «resurrect from the dead» and again pursue Russia, remains to be seen.
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