In the war in Ukraine, 38-year-old Kyrillo Budanov, head of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service (GUR), positioned himself as a key figure in the conflict. He was one of the Ukrainian officials who predicted a Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. “At 5 in the morning.”. Installed with his wife on a protected site, he remembers watching the hands of the clock turn that night. “I don't want this war, but I am responsible for such information. Such mistake cannot be accepted”, He said evenly, his face still.
Since then, a live frog has kept him in his office, on the site where he still lives. Kyrylo Boudanov's journey speaks for itself: the whole life turned into a special activity. After leaving the Odessa Military Academy in 2007, he immediately joined the elite forces of the GUR. Wounded several times during covert operations since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, the young major general was the target of numerous assassination attempts and was appointed head of the GUR in 2020 by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
His Western colleagues sometimes compare Kyrillo Boutanov's GUR to the 1970s Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, which he does not deny. “Times are different, but we are ready for concrete action”He assures. At the current stage of the war, the audacity of its covert operations, launched deeper and deeper beyond Ukraine's borders, sometimes puts the nerves of its foreign partners on edge. On November 28, 2023, Kyrillo Bautano's wife, Marianna, suffered from attempted heavy metal poisoning.
On December 29, 2023 and January 2, 2023, an unprecedented number of bombings hit Ukraine. Has the war entered a new phase?
It may surprise you, but the reason for these strikes is quite ordinary. In the Russian Ministry of Defense, they calculated the year 2023: they wanted to show something quickly, so that they could declare the year a success and move on to the next year. However, they had no real military success. With an enormous stockpile of missiles amassed on their side, the preference was clear. Our military infrastructure is targeted by highly accurate missiles, but these suffer from several shortcomings. Often they decrease. We immediately sent them our reply.
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