General Kyrylo Oleksiyovych Budanov is a Ukrainian military leader who has been the chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GRU) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine since August 2020.
Budanov has been one of the most outspoken and high-profile Ukrainian officials during the war, but now he has vanished from sight as the Counteroffensive peters out.
For weeks, the rumors that he was dead of seriously injured have spread like fire in the Russian Telegram channels, and now Russian mainstream media is starting to report it too.
“According to the information received by the Russian security forces from sources in the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, it became known that Kirill Budanov was injured during a Russian strike on the building of the Main Intelligence Directorate located on Rybalsky Island in Kiev on the morning of May 29. ‘A Russian missile flew into the neighboring office with Budanov’, he said.
[…] Budanov managed to be pulled out from under the rubble, after which he was evacuated by an air ambulance helicopter of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the Rzeszow military base in Poland, and from there – by a C-21A aircraft of the 86th air medical evacuation unit specially arrived from the Ramstein airbase. US Air Force squadrons were delivered to Berlin. A record of the flight of this American aircraft was also preserved in the data of the Flightaradar service, which confirms the words of the source.”
Flight tracker sites record flights coinciding with the RIA Novosti source’ claims: https://t.me/rian_ru/205822
The RIA Novosti source says he is now in serious condition, being treated at the Bundeswehr hospital in Berlin, at 13 Scharnhorststrasse.
The GRU chef is a highly controversial figure who has publicly admitted to be ordering Russian propagandists – that is, civilians.
Newsweek reported:
“The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service has said in an interview that Kyiv has assassinated Russian propagandists.
[…] Among the more high-profile incidents was last August’s car-bomb killing of Darya Dugina, the journalist daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, an ideologue known as ‘Putin’s philosopher’.
More recently, the prominent military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed by an explosion at a Saint Petersburg café in April, and earlier this month pro-Kremlin writer Zakhar Prilepin was injured in car-bomb attack.
[…] Though he didn’t give more details about Ukraine’s involvement in any Russian propagandists’ deaths, Budanov [stated] that ‘there have been well-publicized cases everyone knows about, thanks to the media coverage’.”
On May 29, the Russians performed a massive missile attack on Ukrainian airfields, command posts, and radar posts. Kiev was rocked.
This was the last statement by Budanov, a video on his Telegram channel in which he threatened Moscow with an early response to missile strikes.
BBC reported:
“Gen Budanov said he wanted to “upset” Russia’s supporters by letting them know people in Kyiv were undeterred by the attack and had continued working after it.
‘All those who tried to intimidate us, dreaming that it would have some effect, you will regret it very soon,” he added in a statement published by Ukraine’s intelligence ministry. “Our answer will not be long.’
On his recent meeting with Russian correspondents and bloggers, Russian president Vladimir Putin confirmed the attack on the GRU.
PUTIN: “Not everything, perhaps, is in the mass media, although there is nothing to be ashamed of. Strikes on the entire energy system of Ukraine – is this not a response to overcoming [by the West] the red lines? And the actual destruction of the headquarters of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine in Kiev – is this not the answer?”
Pro-Russians sources, while careful to give credence to the reports, can’t help but find it likely to be true.
Ukrainian military command during the start of the Counteroffensive: no Zaluzhny, no Budanov.
“This, of course, very closely mirrors the rumors we had of Zaluzhny so take it with a grain of salt, but it’s worth filing away for now.
There still appear many strange things about Zaluzhny/Budanov in light of the rumors. Not only were they both missing from certain important upper echelon meetings, but a new sycophantic BBC article about Zaluzhny literally has this postscript at the very bottom:
‘The BBC asked gen Zaluzhny for an interview. He declined our request.'”
GRU spokesman, Andrey Yusov:
“[Budanov] is in excellent health and has a good appetite,” the Strana newspaper quoted Yusov as saying. He also spoke about a recent conversation with Budanov. “[He’s] full of plans, all at work, very little free time, a huge number of tasks,” Yusov claims.
Watch below creepy Ukrainian video with Budanov completely silent: