confessions of Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence

Kirill Boudanov, 38, a Ukrainian spymaster, lives in the shadows while regularly being in the media spotlight. In his office where no light shines through, the boss of the GUR – the intelligence directorate of the Ministry of Defense – spoke to the British daily Financial Timeswho reported his comments on Sunday, some of them very surprising.

Thus he enigmatically evokes the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former boss of the Wagner mercenary group, who launched his rebellion “march” on Moscow last June before being killed in the crash in August. from his plane, in troubled conditions to say the least. All eyes were on the Kremlin. But Kirill Budanov suggests another hypothesis, absolutely unverifiable. “Speaking of Prigozhin, I would not draw such quick conclusions», he slips about the death of the chief mercenary. Before adding: “I say there’s not a single piece of evidence that he’s dead“. For Boudanov in any case, “Wagner exists“. Way of throwing confusion over the dissolution of the militia, surrounded by gray areas. The Ukrainian branch of the mercenary group would have notably been recast within the Rosgvardia, the Russian national guard.

Putin’s “lookalikes”

Prigozhin’s death is not the only subject on which Kirill Budanov instills doubt. He also returns to a subject that is dear to him: Vladimir Putin and… his look-alikes. This theory, like that of “disease» from which the Russian president allegedly suffers, comes up regularly on social networks, without the slightest proof to this day. The boss of the GUR himself has in the past mentioned a “cancer» from Putin, who would use “clones” on the television. He insists to the Financial Times, who asks him for proof. Its analysts would study the “physiognomy» of the Russian president, notably his earlobes: “It’s not that difficult. You can easily do it yourself», sweeps away the spy as if the thing were self-evident.

On the course of the war, Kyrill Boudanov is less affirmative. Since last January, the head of the GUR has been the main spokesperson for the spring (finally summer) counter-offensive which was to take the Ukrainians to Crimea. “A decisive battle between Ukraine and Russia will take place this spring, which will determine the outcome of the war“, he announced again in March. The counter-offensive ultimately failed to break through the Russian Surovikin line, the Ukrainians having gained only a few dozen square kilometers. The capture of the village of Robotyne did not open the way to the Sea of ​​Azov.

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Since the winter, the Russians have even pressed on the outskirts of the small town, and have taken the initiative further east in the region of Donetsk and Lugansk, seizing a few municipalities and threatening the city of ‘Avdiivka. “To say that everything is fine is not true. To say that there is a catastrophe is also not true», sums up Boudanov cautiously, taking up in his own way the idea of ​​“dead end» mentioned last November by the commander of the Ukrainian army, General Zalouzhny. For 2024, the head of military intelligence is careful not to play oracles: “I hope our success will be greater than theirs“.

Petro, Boudanov’s mysterious frog

The time is no longer for the counter-offensive, which he nevertheless tries to defend. “Even though the initial plans suggested something different, we kept our promise. This summer, our units entered Crimea several times», argues the young general. In reality, the two ideas have nothing similar, between a large operation involving tens of thousands of men on one side, and a few commando missions launched by Ukrainian special forces on the beaches of the Crimean peninsula of other.

Is it linked to these particularly risky amphibious operations that Kirill Boudanov takes in a frog, Petro, who shares with him the heavy darkness of his office? THE “FT» does not say more about the presence of the amphibian in an aquarium.

“A soap bubble”

The head of the GUR prefers to highlight what he has done best since the start of the war in Ukraine: targeted operations inside Russian territory, in particular thanks to the use of drones. Ukraine, however, rarely claims them. “We do not anticipate any radical changes in the near future. Everything we have done, we will continue to do», Explains the head of military intelligence. During the night from Saturday to Sunday, a gas terminal was the victim of a fire near Saint Petersburg. kyiv did not claim responsibility for the attack, unlike those on two other oil terminals last week.

Behind these brilliant coups, the idea is also to avoid, in the story of the war, moving from the idea of ​​an impasse for the two belligerents to that of a possible Russian victory. “All the legend of power [de la Russie] is a soap bubble», he sweeps away, pointing out Russia’s difficulty in maintaining the pace of the war. “This is precisely what explains Russia’s search for weapons in other countries», says the general, echoing munitions transfers from North Korea in particular. “They transferred a significant amount of artillery ammunition. This allowed Russia to breathe a little. Without their help, the situation would have been catastrophic., he argues. Budanov, however, says nothing about the strengthening of the capabilities of the Russian military industry, nor about the shortages which threaten Ukraine and which many Ukrainian officials openly admit today.

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The head of the GUR, however, recognizes the lack of men facing the Ukrainian army. “The shortage [de main-d’œuvre] is palpable“, he admits, affirming that “it is not even conceivable to think that we could do without mobilization“. Boudanov is referring here to a statement by Volodymyr Zelensky who said that the army was asking him to mobilize 400,000 to 500,000 additional soldiers. The subject is sensitive in Ukraine. Last week on national television, the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Yuriy Lutsenko, called Zelensky and Zaluzhny “to tell people the truth» on the Ukrainian losses, which he estimates to be “500,000» killed and seriously injured – a much higher assessment than those put forward so far.

The spymaster tries to reassure by asserting that Russian losses are greater than Moscow’s ability to replenish them. But, to date, there is no evidence to support this. On the contrary, Budanov’s assistant, “Vadym Skibitskyi said this week that around 1,000 to 1,100 people join the Russian army every day», recalls the Financial Times. Figures which correspond more or less with those given by Moscow: in 2024, more than 400,000 Russians, attracted by high salaries, would have signed a contract with the army.

In this favorable context, Vladimir Putin, who sees the presidential election in March coming, does not need to launch a new mobilization, after that of September 2023, which has been the only one so far on the Russian side.