Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the military intelligence service of Ukrainehas admitted that agents working for him have assassinated Kremlin propagandists in the past 15 months, since Russia invaded Ukraine. “We have already acted successfully on quite a few people. There have been well-publicized cases that everyone knows about, thanks to media coverage,” General Budanov told the Ukrainian Different People YouTube channel when asked if Ukrainian security services had killed Russian rioters.
On May 6 the Russian writer Zajar Pripelin, who had fought in the conflict in Donbas between 2016 and 2018 and who was also fighting in the war in Ukraine, was injured on a Russian highway when a device exploded under the car in which he was traveling. The Investigative Committee of Russia described the attack on the writer as a “terrorist act”. Russian investigators said they questioned a suspect named Alexander Permyakov, whom they accused of working with Ukrainian intelligence.
On April 2, the Russian blogger died Vladlen Tatarsky in an explosion that occurred in a St. Petersburg coffee shop called Street Bar Cafe. His real name was Maxim Fomin and he was considered one of the best-known figures in favor of the invasion of Ukraine. The day he was assassinated he was participating in an event when he was handed a small statuette containing explosives inside. Russia’s Interior Ministry said an arrest warrant has been issued for Yuriy Denisov, a Ukrainian citizen who they say watched Tatarsky for two months from an apartment near his home.
The most notorious case was that of Darya Dugina, daughter of Russian thinker Aleksandr Dugin, died after her car exploded while she was driving home. Her father, a prominent ultra-nationalist ideologue known as “Putin’s mastermind”, was believed to have been the intended target of the attack.
Budanov claimed that recent acts of sabotage inside Russian territory, including the derailment of a freight train and attacks on oil and gas infrastructure near the border with Ukraine, had been carried out. “Almost 100 percent by citizens.” of the Russian Federation”.
He also revealed in another interview that in the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, the GRU, there is a minority of Russians cooperating with Ukraine for “patriotic” reasons and “willing to change Russia”. Budanov also admits that he aims to establish a demilitarized border zone up to 100 kilometers inside Russia to deter future Kremlin attacks.
In another interview with the independent Russian media Meduz, Budanov stated that “the potential of the Russian Army to advance is completely exhausted, but still has significant defensive potential. They have erected a multi-tiered defense system. Still, this is not the same Russian army that might have been expected to carry out major offensive operations.”
