Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Friday that he had chosen General Kirilo Budanov, the head of the military intelligence service (GUR), to replace Andrii Iermak, the head of the presidential chancellery, who resigned at the end of November amid a corruption scandal.
The President of Ukraine said that he offered the position of head of the presidential cabinet to the director of the army's intelligence service, Kirilo Budanov, because “at this moment Ukraine must focus more on security issues, on the development of the defense and security forces of Ukraine, as well as on diplomatic negotiations, and the Office of the President will primarily serve to fulfill these tasks of our state”, writes News.ro.
“Kirilo has specialized experience in these fields and sufficient power to achieve results. I also gave instructions to the new head of the President's Office, in cooperation with the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (Rustem Umerov – no) and other relevant leaders and institutions, to update and submit for approval the strategic foundations of the defense and development of our state, as well as the next steps,” stated Volodymyr Zelensky on X.
Surprise announcement by Zelensky, who proposed General Budanov to be his chief of staff
The Ukrainian presidency has been destabilized by a vast corruption scandal involving the embezzlement of nearly $100 million in the energy sector, involving a close friend of Volodymyr Zelensky – who is currently a fugitive abroad. This scandal led to the resignation of two ministers and the powerful head of the presidential administration, Andrii Iermak, also mentioned in the scandal. Yermak was Ukraine's main negotiator in the relationship with the United States. His role in the negotiations was taken over by Rustem Umerov, former defense minister, currently secretary of the National Security Council.
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Budanov, almost a god for Ukrainians
A former member of the special forces that fought in Donbas in 2014, Kirilo Budanov himself participated in secret missions, including in the occupied Crimean peninsula. His body bears scars: shrapnel from an anti-personnel mine once hit him near the heart, almost killing him; he broke both his neck and back and was shot in the arm.
Budanov was appointed to head GUR by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in 2020. His covert operations — the Kremlin blamed GUR for an explosion on the Crimean bridge in October 2022 and many other acts of sabotage — have revitalized the agency, which has long played second fiddle to Ukraine's much larger internal security service, the SBU.
That's why Budanov enjoys near-cult status among Ukrainians, who share memes of his face on social media when military equipment explodes in Russia or Russian-controlled areas.
In February 2023, his name was floated to replace Oleksii Reznikov as head of the Ministry of Defense after Zelenskiy reshuffled in the wake of a corruption scandal. In the end, Zelensky preferred Rustem Umerov, the current secretary of the National Security Council, for this position.
Budanov's wife, poisoned in November 2023
But this came at a price. When the head of the GUR leaves the house, he moves with an entourage of bodyguards and intelligence agents. Of the many assassination attempts against him – which he describes as “nothing special” – one took place in 2019, when a bomb placed under his car exploded prematurely. He was not injured.
His wife, Marianna Budanova, was less fortunate, being intentionally poisoned with heavy metals in November 2023, along with several GUR officers, according to the spy agency.
“He's getting treatment, he's feeling better now,” Budanov said in January 2024, but declined to say whether his wife or himself was the intended target of the poisoning.
Why Russians hate him
Kirilo Budanov is 39 years old and holds the rank of major general. He graduated from the Land Forces Institute in Odesa in 2007, after which he served in the special forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. He participated in special military operations, information about them being classified.
Kiev announces that it staged the death of a Russian military chief who was fighting for Ukraine. “Congratulations on coming back to life”, Kirilo Budanov sends him – VIDEO
In Ukrainian political circles, he is respected as the only person – along with the American and British secret services – who correctly warned, months in advance, what Russia was planning.
Hours before all his warnings about a Russian invasion proved correct, Major General Kirilo Budanov moved his wife into his office, fearing that the worst would indeed happen. It was February 23 – the night before the launch of the Russian invasion against Ukraine – and Budanov had put his very career on the line, because he was among the few Ukrainian officials convinced that Russia was about to attack and try to capture the capital, Kiev, reported The Washington Post.
He and his wife looked intently and anxiously at the clock that night. Budanov risked being out of a job soon, if everything did not go as he had predicted and as he had communicated, moreover, to the – skeptical, at that time – political leadership of Ukraine. “We had this discussion that if that attack doesn't happen, we won't be very well,” he said in an interview with the American newspaper. “I had specifically said that at 4 o'clock in the morning it would start. It sounds very strange, but I was afraid that it would not happen as it was supposed to happen,” he confessed.
A year later, Budanov's words carried great weight with President Volodymyr Zelensky and others in Kiev.
At the time, in 2022, it was largely ignored. Most other Ukrainian government and military officials expected the Russian invasion to be limited to the eastern part of the country rather than a full-scale, three-pronged attack.
The rapid rise of Budanov, who became one of the youngest generals in Ukraine's history, accelerated in August 2016, when a lieutenant colonel of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) was killed in Crimea, apparently by Ukrainian saboteurs. Budanov is believed to have been one of the Ukrainian special agents involved, working behind enemy lines, and was later awarded the “Order of Courage” for undisclosed operations.
In 2020, then only 34 years old, he was appointed head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (GUR).
Although years have passed since the operation in Crimea, Budanov is still tight-lipped about details. He would not confirm or deny the operation or his role in it. “Something happened,” was all he said. “And all the attempts on my life started after that,” the Ukrainian military intelligence official added.
In 2019, a bomb was placed under his car, but it was detonated prematurely. There were at least 10 assassination attempts against him, according to a person close to Budanov.
In June 2023, Russian propaganda claimed he had been seriously injured and was being treated in critical condition abroad, but he appeared in a video recording mocking these narratives.
The fact that he wished for death made him lead a cautious personal existence. Budanov lives in his office. He rarely goes out in public. In his office, classical music plays non-stop – perhaps it is also a defense against any attempts to listen to what is being said inside, mentioned in an article of The Washington Post.
