Ukraine's spymaster, Kyrylo Budanov, has built an unusually public profile as the head of Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), using his position to spread his message and menace Russia from afar. Budanov, 37, has used his public profile to get his news out and threaten Russia from afar. He believes that a spy boss cannot stay in the shadows anymore and that all the subsequent wars will look like this.
Ukraine had concluded the need to get its message across since 2014 when Moscow surprised the world by seizing Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and unleashing a proxy war in the east. The war began in 2022, and now the Russians are losing the information battle. Since a mercenary mutiny in Russia last month made Moscow's ruling system appear more opaque and unstable, Budanov has used the opportunity to weigh in about what Ukraine's spies know about their enemy. He cited an intercepted survey by the Russian Interior Ministry that showed mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had support inside Russia.
Budanov is a mysterious and intense figure in Russia, appointed in August 2020, and has seen his popularity and public profile surge inside Ukraine during the war. He is portrayed as a behind-the-scenes mastermind of efforts to strike back at Russia. In Russian media, he is a hate figure, and the Kremlin has decried his remark that "we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine."
Russia has blamed Ukrainian secret services for the murders of a pro-war Russian blogger and a pro-war journalist, but Kyiv denies involvement. Russian media reported that a court in Moscow had arrested Budanov in absentia in April on terrorism charges. The prospect of a spy agency sending assassins to hunt down Ukraine's enemies has drawn comparisons with Israel's Mossad. Budanov, who began his military career as a special forces operative, has been wounded three times and has faced numerous failed attempts on his life, including a botched car bombing. In late May, a Russian air strike hit his headquarters on Kyiv's Rybalskyi Peninsula, sparking Russian media reports that he had been gravely wounded.
