KYIV, July 14 (Reuters) – He carries a gun in interviews with foreign journalists and discusses wartime intelligence. Weapons and military equipment are scattered on the floor of his office in kyiv. He says that he has “sources” close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
For an intelligence chief running Ukraine’s spy operations during the war with Russia, 37-year-old Kyrylo Budanov has created an unusual public profile that he has used to deliver his message and threaten Russia from afar.
These days, a spy chief can’t stay in the shadows, he says.
“It’s not possible without this, not anymore,” the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) told Reuters in an interview at its heavily defended headquarters in the capital.
“And all the next wars will look like this. In any country in the world. We can say that we are setting a trend here.”
Ukraine has drawn conclusions about the need to get its message across since 2014, when Moscow took the world by surprise by seizing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and unleashing a proxy war in the east, it says.
“We completely lost the information war in 2014. And the war, which started in (2022), we started here in a completely different way. And now the Russians are losing the information battle.”
Ever since a mutiny by mercenaries in Russia last month made Moscow’s system of government seem more opaque and unstable, Budanov has taken the opportunity to weigh in on what Ukraine’s spies know about their enemy.
In parts of his interview reported by Reuters earlier this week, he saying mutinous Russian mercenaries had headed to a nuclear base in search of a backpack-sized atomic weapon. Several Russian sources who spoke to Reuters confirmed parts of that version.
Budanov also cited an intercepted poll conducted by the Russian Interior Ministry which he said showed that mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had support inside Russia.
He provided no evidence, but noted that he accurately predicted that Russia would invade before full-scale war broke out last year. “Who turned out to be right? Us.”
“We have our own sources. In the closest offices (to Putin), so to speak. That’s why we usually know what’s going on.”
DENIGRATED IN RUSSIA
Enigmatic and intense, Budanov sat behind his desk in a military uniform under a painting of an owl, the symbol of his agency, sinking its talons into a bat, the emblem of Russia’s military intelligence directorate.
The blinds in his office were drawn with sandbags on the windows.
Appointed in August 2020, Budanov has seen his popularity and public profile rise within Ukraine during the war, where he is portrayed as the behind-the-scenes mastermind of efforts to strike back at Russia. In the Russian media he is a hate figure.
The Kremlin called a comment he made in May “monstrous” that “we will continue to kill Russians anywhere in the world until the total victory of Ukraine.”
Russia has blamed the Ukrainian secret services for the murders of a pro-war Russian blogger and a pro-war journalist. Kyiv denies its involvement. Russian media reported that a Moscow court arrested Budanov in absentia in April on terrorism charges.
The prospect of a spy agency sending assassins to hunt down Ukraine’s enemies has drawn comparisons to Israel’s Mossad. Budanov does not resist the analogy.
“If you’re asking if the Mossad is famous (for)… eliminating the enemies of their state, then we were doing it and we will do it. We don’t need to create anything because it already exists.”
Budanov began his military career as a special forces operative, serving in the east after Russia illegally annexed Crimea and its proxies seized the eastern fringes of Ukraine. He was wounded three times.
Since he took over the espionage service there have been numerous failed attempts on his life, including a failed car bombing in which the assailant was killed in the air.
“The only thing I can say is that they haven’t stopped trying, but I repeat, it’s all in vain,” he said.
In late May, a Russian airstrike hit his headquarters on kyiv’s Rybalskyi Peninsula, prompting Russian media reports that he had been seriously injured. Budanov downplayed the importance of him.
“That wasn’t his first try. But as you can see, once again, we’re here in the main rooms of this building. When I was outside, I could see people walking around and working. Everything is working as it should.” ought.”
Reporting by Tom Balmforth Additional reporting by Sergiy Karazy Editing by Mike Collett-White and Peter Graff
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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