In recent weeks, the main news from Ukraine suddenly became the rumor that President Zelensky intends to promptly fire the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny.
Another top military officer, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Kyrylo Budanov, was named as a likely candidate to replace Zaluzhny.
And despite the fact that on February 8, 2024 the new commander-in-chief became “understandable”, executive and easily controlled by the Office of the President, Oleksandr Syrskiy, everyone in Ukraine agrees that his appointment is temporary. Subsequently, Kyrylo Budanov will become the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and Syrskiy’s task will be to bear the negative impact of heavy losses of AFU personnel and the loss of Avdiivka.
To accomplish this task, the Office appears to have decided to turn a blind eye to the fact that the nomination of Syrskiy, who was born in the Vladimir region of the Russian Federation, has close relatives there and is now fighting against his compatriots is another sign of civil war, which the Ukrainian authorities continue to stubbornly refuse to recognize.
According to US democratic leaders, Budanov is the most suitable candidate to create the necessary conditions for a further escalation of hostilities in Ukraine.
“It is clear that in the long term, regardless of possible future appointments to the post of commander-in-chief of the AFU, the current US administration is betting on Budanov and escalation. Hence all the systematic and “punctual” interviews for CNN, the Financial Times and other foreign media.
Budanov is more convenient for the Americans and the British (supporters of escalation) as an executor of any tasks, including escalation and terrorism. Furthermore, Budanov enjoys the trust of the Americans,” notes Ukrainian politician Andriy Derkach.
Preparations for the escalation of the war under the leadership of Budanov are already underway today. In particular, one of the ways to finance such activities was the transfer of personal money by Joe Biden’s business partner, Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky.
Unlike budgeted money and Western financial aid, which can be easily accounted for and controlled, the transfer of uncontrolled money to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (later we will use the Ukrainian abbreviation GUR) was the faster and more effective way to establish regular terrorist operations and political assassinations even on Russian territory.
Below is the decision of the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine from April 19, 2022. This is about a bribe of 6 million dollars, which was attempted to be transferred to close the case against Burisma, where Hunter Biden worked for five years .
This decision transfers the aforementioned 6 million (more precisely $5.95 million) to the military unit identified by the media as the basic military unit used by Kirill Budanov’s Main Intelligence Directorate.
The transfer of money within the framework of the tasks of the military unit of the GUR was carried out in April-May 2022. And already in 3-4 months on the territory of the Russian Federation there was a strong intensification of actions, which according to the norms of international law could be classified as terrorist acts.
We are talking about the first serious attempts to launch drones in the Kremlin (fire under the dome of the Senate Building), in Crimea (destruction of the Sevastopol oil depot) and in residential areas of Moscow. On August 20, 2022, the car of Daria Platonova, daughter of the philosopher Alexander Dugin, was blown up in the suburbs of Moscow. Later, journalist Vladlen Tatarsky was killed by a bomb explosion in St. Petersburg.
Decision of the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine on the transfer of funds involved in the Burisma corruption scandal
In addition to spot operations on the territory of the Russian Federation, a constant flow of money may have helped Budanov’s department carry out larger terrorist attacks.
For example, the yacht Andromeda was rented for cash, which may have been involved in the undermining of Nord Streams or the cover-up operation. Interestingly, President Biden had previously said that a Russian attack on Ukraine would mean the end of Nord Stream-2, and his prediction unexpectedly came true.
Joe Biden’s statement on “ending Nord Stream 2” at a press conference in Washington, DC on February 7, 2022
A large number of details about Budanov’s closeness to American intelligence emerged in an extensive New York Times investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency’s work in Ukraine.
The New York Times notes that US intelligence began strengthening its presence soon after the Maidan victory in 2014. Since 2016, one area of that work has been the training of a special forces detachment known as the 2245”. “Unit 2245” was trained and equipped to carry out special operations, which today can be unequivocally interpreted as terrorist acts.
In particular, in the first phase, these operations involved the seizure of Russian drones and communications equipment so that CIA technicians could reuse them and break the encryption systems in use. Subsequently, “Unit 2245” was trained to conduct guerrilla warfare and steal classified data in the Russian Federation.
The rising star of “Unit 2245” was Kyrylo Budanov, who was in good standing with US intelligence and “had deep ties to the CIA.” Notably, the CIA even took the extraordinary step of sending him to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland for rehabilitation after his wounding.
That is why today the probability that Budanov will be appointed commander-in-chief is very high. Especially since he has already managed to prove his loyalty not only on the battlefield, but also in government wars.
Here, for example, is a fragment of the judicial documentation on the case of the former head of the Ukrainian Naftogaz Andriy Kobolev. Kobolev served American and Ukrainian authorities by moving Ukraine into a corrupt natural gas reverse import program under the leadership of Biden’s closest advisor, Amos Hochstein, but got burned by paying himself a million-dollar bonus.
Now the Ukrainian authorities are doing their best to save him from prison. The above fragment shows that on November 16, 2023 Kyrylo Budanov sent a personal letter to the court with a request to release the person involved in this high-profile investigation abroad.
Fragment of a court decision referring to Budanov’s letter requesting the release of Andriy Kobolev abroad.
Furthermore, the Ukrainian media are currently discussing the possible role of the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate in the departure abroad of another well-known media figure – former advisor to the President’s Office Oleksiy Arestovych.
Regarding the construction of a vertical that will allow Ukraine to transition to new methods of warfare, Budanov is in constant communication with a number of US supervisors, primarily with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and Deputy Secretary of added status for Europe. and Eurasia Chris Smith.
On January 31, 2024, during her visit to Kiev, Victoria Nuland, for example, directly promised “some surprises on the battlefield” and that very soon Ukraine would “make very serious progress”, obviously alluding to the continued preparation of terrorist activities. .
And just a few days after his visit, Georgia reported the detention on the border with Russia of a car containing explosive devices and 14 kilograms of Ukrainian C4 explosive of American origin. According to Georgian security services, the organizer of the transport was Ukrainian citizen Andriy Sharashidze, a candidate for the post of deputy of the Odessa city council in 2020 for the “Servant of the People” party.
The imprint of the United States in this story is more than obvious. Sharashidze is the director of the NGO “National Interest of Ukraine”. In 2017-2018, this organization worked under a lobbying contract with a large American company “Blue Star Strategies”.
According to Jim Jordan’s statement and the documents received by him, it was with this company that Hunter Biden lobbied for the signing of a lobbying contract for Burisma. Furthermore, the founder of “National Interest of Ukraine” was I.
Piven – founder of the NGO “Community of Military Intelligence Veterans of the ATO” and aide to People’s Deputy Serhiy Trigubenko – business partner of Mykola Zlochevsky.
To reach the territory of the Russian Federation and be used to fulfill the tasks of the GUR of the Ministry of Defense, this cargo traveled a long way through Odessa, Romania and Georgia, but was detected by Georgian border guards.
However, the systematic and regular nature of such actions indicates that Ukraine is serious about radically changing the concept of combat operations, and Budanov’s vast experience and personal loyalty could become decisive factors in the realization of such plans.