The Ukrainian spymaster who Putin wants dead | Kyrylo Budanov | Stories of Our Times

[Music] it began back in May this year when a startling video emerged showing something that nobody expected to see in Moscow it'd be pretty remarkable breach of Russian air defenses for a drone like that to fly all the way across the country and hit the Kremlin two drones were seen flying over the Kremlin the headquarters of the Russian president within minutes there was a small explosion nobody was injured and then a few weeks later there was another drone attack in Moscow Russian TV says this is the moment that Moscow came under attack from early morning people in and around the Russian Capital reported hearing explosions and yesterday Moscow awoke to a fresh round of drone strikes one narrowly missing Russia's defense Ministry Russia has accused Ukraine of launching a drone attack on Moscow Russia's defense Ministry says two drones hit non-residential buildings with one crashing close to its headquarters in the city center no casualties have been reported foreign attacks on Moscow feel new over the past year we have seen Russia being directly targeted in other ways too through assassinations on Russian territory and damage to the country's infrastructure drones hitting the Kremlin blowing up the Kirch Bridge linking Russia to Crimea attacks by sea drones on Russian shipping in Sebastopol and several assassinations have been a blow to Russia and to Russian morale and the Kremlin are so Furious about them that they've started a Blame Game Russia tonight blaming the U.S for the alleged drone attack on the Kremlin claiming without any evidence that such an attack would be quote dictated to Kiev from Washington we don't attack or Moscow are we fight on our territory it appears as if Russia is getting targeted inside Russia who is perpetrating it we don't know foreign but there is one man who the Kremlin believes to be the Mastermind behind it all he is the head of Ukraine's intelligence the gur and Russia wants him dead is it tiring living with that threat the whole time [Music] now it's like a compliment for me it's like a medal if you want he's a man who considers it a medal a badge of honor a huge compliment that Russia keeps trying to assassinate him and it won't stop him taking the war back to them it's a real projection of Power by the gur back into Russia message to Russia you cannot have this war on your terms inside Ukraine it's coming back at you [Music] listening to stories of our times from the times and the Sunday Times I'm manvin Rana today meet the Ukrainian spymaster who is Putin's prime target foreign my name is Anthony Lloyd and I'm a special correspondent for the times Anthony you've just been a new crane where you managed to have a meeting with a man who's pretty much a legend now in that country this is Major General kirilo budanov tell us where did you have to go to meet him so I met him on rubalski island which is where the headquarters of the gur the military intelligence directorate of Ukraine or had caught it so it's in Kiev and it's a small River Island which you get over over a bridge and this kind of industrial area there and a few kind of flyovers and all the rest of it it took a bit of time to arrange this meeting it was the first time we had met but I was really curious to know his views on some of the aspects of the war and he in himself is a very interesting character [Music] tell us about that I mean what were your first impressions of meeting him because you know when you went to meet him he was supposedly a dead man yes at the end of May there was a double missile strike on the headquarters and the Russians seemed very confident that they'd either killed badanov or or wounded him so badly that he was comatose and had allegedly been evacuated to a NATO Hospital in Germany and Russian military bloggers kept repeating this with a great degree of confidence and Putin smirked on air on TV I think a day or two after the strikes on the rabelski island headquarters that there have been a Precision strike against the GU R there so as far as they're concerned he's dead as far as they was concerned he had been hit he was very seriously injured or dead and more Curious was that turn off who speaks out quite often suddenly went into total silence in the middle of this kind of three-week Silence a very strange video appeared without obviously a date stab of him sitting at his desk staring at the camera saying nothing with just the caption plants love silence plans laugh silence so this is this is the great intelligence Master yeah plotting away in silence yeah but also there's no way of telling when that was shot he didn't say anything he didn't refer to being struck so the Russians are like he's definitely dead now look you know this is old footage being conjured up and I wasn't even sure when I applied to him I was like well I wonder if he is in hospital in Berlin or not but then one day I was told to go to robasky Island and there he was very much alive and certainly him yeah he's pretty unmistakable well tell us in what way on mistake what does he like to meet as a person well first of all he's pretty young from spymaster he's 37 years old one U.S intelligence official likened uh budanov as George Smiley meets Jason Bourne the intelligence of smiley and the violence of Jason Bourne his office is very dark it's very shadowy and you can see he's been wounded a lot there's a slight stoop there and damage to his arm he's had his elbow joint blown out or shattered he's got a piece of shrapnel near his heart these are Legacy wounds man this wasn't the May strike this is stuff that happened a few years ago in donbass when he was on Special Operations thank you when you meet him you said his office is quite dark just describe the scene I'm invited in he's standing so he's by his desk shake hands and sit down now the desk is this really eclectic scatter of stuff there was everything there was there's loads of owls owls of the emblem of the gur when you say elves are these like little statues of owls there's little statues of ours there's big statues of ours there's medium statues vows and behind his desk there is a huge painting of an owl wings out spread clutching a bat now the bat is the symbol of his Russian opponent intelligence organization the gru so he's sitting there with this huge Spread spread wing owl with a bat in his Talons then as well there was yes samurai sword this grenade launcher there's a hand grenade on his desk there's a chess board there I counted at least six phones but I think there were more than that and best of all I noticed this dark tank there's no light on in it the room's quite shadowy anyway and then this very palette kind of frog drifted out of the Gloom and then another one and it just really added to that whole atmosphere and a place this world of secrecy these Gloom and suddenly these pallid frogs they're sort of emerging up against the side of the tank and then disappearing back into darkness and then you've got this guy sitting behind his desk it's everything you'd want from a spy Master there's a chess board there because that's obviously oh he likes his chest too yeah there are owls everywhere that's their symbol and then as you say the samurai sword and the the rocket launch all these things which are much more military and much more about action than you'd imagine from an intelligence man oh this guy is into action it's very interesting all the things that have occurred on his watch since he's been head of the gru since he's been director the boss man put it this way the war has been taken very much outside of the borders of Ukraine and into Russia and elsewhere now he did say to me absolutely directly that he loves direct action and he said it in a very chilling way as well we love direct action we're good at it we do it we will do it in the world where we see fit against whoever so this is this is clearly a very influential man just give us a sense of what his role is and how he got there what's his background he started off in training to be um a paratrooper originally in 2007 in Ukraine but then before he he passed out of his military academy he went off to join the intelligence Services the gur been there for three years 2020 attracted zelenski's attention as being you know smart out of the box thinker this is a guy who is trained a bit of power but then became a spy but not as spies we know it I mean it's like an unarmed action spy who has been wounded and grieviously as well I mean the British shrapnel I think he took near the heart that was in the donbass some years ago where someone hit an anti-personnel mine and it really badly wounded in the neck I think shoulder and a bit went into his heart and he had to walk I think five kilometers really badly wounded to get out of it so this is a guy who's a fighter as well as a thinker and quite an angry man when you hear him talk about direct action operations against the Russians by which she means as I understand it assassinate this is a guy who likes his work and wants to make Russia bleed now the GUI it's not like MI6 or MI5 that totally different totally different really yeah in what way because they're much more Hands-On there's traditional intelligence highly militarized intelligence running assassination campaigns as well Special Forces operations and when the need arises putting heavily armed groups into the field to do battle wow so this is MI6 and the SAS and even a bit of intercept stuff all rolled into one all rolled into one and mail out as well he was kind of alone in 2021 within the Ukrainian leadership of warning that the Russian invasion was imminent in the Autumn of 2021 there are a lot of people including zelenski who really didn't appear to believe that the Russian invasion was imminent was saying it is imminent so he's certainly been proved right he's been proved right not with everything I mean there is you know there are contentious things he says that Vladimir Putin is terminally ill with cancer the Americans have come and said no we don't believe though we haven't seen evidence to say that Putin's terminally ill last year he said definitely the war would be over this year well this year's still running so we don't know but it doesn't look like the war was going to finish anytime soon I mean I imagine intelligence Chiefs all over the world probably changed their opinions quite regularly I suppose the difference with him is he's so public about the things that he's warning how has that sort of affected his reputation in Ukraine I mean I've seen him described in some articles as the Buddha badanov [Laughter] he has got a very very high public profile and you know there was a photographer who was working with me that day who took a couple of portraits of dawn of at his desk people have taken portraits of him before and this great sort of social media game in the Ukraine to guess what the symbolism of everything on his desk means I mean I'm baffled well samurai sword and frogs you know it's quite a psychiatric riddle some people say he has got political aspirations others say that it's just a very important part of controlling the information space for a spymaster to appear as publicly as he does other people say no that's not the case and he should be quieter but um he is a very very well known figure in Ukraine widely admired by ukrainians particularly because you know they're on the end so often of drone strikes and missile strikes and they see in budanov a Ukrainian who is unafraid to take the war back into Russia [Music] you mentioned that he said there had been several assassination attempts on his life by the Russians why do the Russians want him dead oh because he does things which the Russians or the Russians suspect him of being involved with things which really hurt them or really humiliate them since the invasion started you've got numerous incidents of direct action either in the Russian Federation or against Russian assets abroad so those attacks have included the destruction of the Nordstrom pipeline drones hitting the Kremlin the blowing up the Kirch Bridge linking Russian to Crimea attacks by sea drones on Russian shipping in sevastable and several assassinations probably don't know quite how many assassinations but many including that of the military blogger vladland tarsky and the bungle strike that was actually aimed at her father but ended up killing Daria dugina the daughter of a nationalist ideologue on top of that we've got waves of mysterious kind of arson attacks on fuel Depots and storage dumps and as well these long-range raids by ukrainian-backed Russian dissident groups into Russia coming out of Ukraine on them trained by ukrainians and going to attack targets inside Russia now that's quite a long checklist of direct action incidents even if boudanov or the gur are only responsible for a few of those these are Big operations they cause the Russians a lot of internal angst a lot of humiliation a lot of anger they see boudanov as the man behind a lot of these operations and they want to kill him so Anthony budanov is the youngest head of the Ukrainian intelligence service the the gur at a time when the country is at War just explain the role that the gur has played in the war since they began and just how effective they've been I think first of all looking at it from inside Ukraine the direct action operations should run by gur inside Russia carries a huge emotional positive impact in the eyes of ukrainians you know ukrainians so often are on the end of drone strikes missile strikes air strikes and for them to be aware that one of their own agencies is hitting back Russia inside Russia is very very popular amongst a lot of ukrainians I think there's a wider strategic awareness amongst many of the leadership in Ukraine that if this is a straight military contest between Ukrainian Army and Russian army in eastern Ukraine in order to drive the Russians out of their country then Ukraine probably isn't going to come up on top it hasn't got the ratios of soldiers artillery and certainly of air power are not in Ukraine's favor but if that campaign is fought parallel to another campaign a campaign that takes the war into Russia that hit strategic targets like the Kirch Bridge which is a real solar plexus Point The Bridge links Crimea to Russia Mainland and there's been at least two strikes on that the most recent one last week the bridge is the most potent and most hated symbol of Russia's occupation of Crimea now the bridge has been damaged for the second time in 10 months Putin is immensely proud of that bridge an attack on the bridge is an attack on Putin himself he would not be happy at all these are real nerve points for Russia so it's a real projection of Power by the gur back into Russia message to Russia you cannot have this war on your terms inside Ukraine it's coming back at you and though he's never admitted to my knowledge to one assassination including the assassinations of Russian propagandists of military bloggers some of the words that budanov has put out either to journalists or in statements following up on assassinations make it very clear that the GUI were likely involved and just give us a sense of some of the other more recent incidents that have happened that people have immediately thought that must be the gur there was assassination of a guy called stanislav rajitski who is 42 years old who's a former Southern Marine commander of a submarine called the krasnado the crescentville submarine was involved on a missile strike in the Ukrainian city of Venezia last year in which 23 civilians was killed now rajitski was gunned down as he was jogging in the city of krasnodal which is the same known as the uh submarine and he was shot multiple times now this fits in exactly with the kind of assassination operations that the gur allude to and let's make no mistake as to how udanov sees direct action operations we are doing that right now he told me and he sounded really angry when he said that we're doing that right now while these Inhumans are existing we will be active we use direct actions we use them and we love them and humans are existing we will be active he said that to me just a week before rajitski gets gunned down the Russian submarine commander in Russia immediately after the assassination the Russians blame the gur and the gur budanos organization releases its own cryptic message due to Heavy Rain the park was deserted they're talking about the sight of the assassination so there were no Witnesses who could provide details or identify the attacker the GUI said now those details would only be known if you were there in the park at 6am when the guy was shot and it seems that rajitsky's runs these morning runs could be tracked on a Strava app which is like a fitness app that he used to launch his running routes on so it looks like whoever killed him was working for an organization that knew how to track someone's app physical activity via an app to put down a good operation assassination operation when there was no one else around and get away with it that's what it looks like now whether the gur is responsible or not I don't know but a pretty chilling statement from them afterwards foreign [Music] recently a leak of U.S intelligence documents on the group chat platform Discord have showed us a bit about what they knew was going on and one of the really intriguing leaks showed that evgeny progosian the head of the Wagner group the Russian mercenaries was communicating with the head of The Gua the Ukrainian intelligence with badanov were certainly with his agency what do we know about those links I asked him directly about this because I was I was interested that Discord links alluded to the fact that either boudanov or his guys his officers had met with pregosian in an undisclosed African country so when I asked him about it I will be able to tell you anything about it he said yeah he said he wouldn't comment on the Discord leagues but he said that he had engaged directly have we could you use the word face yeah have we can't interact interacted let me put it like that we met which is a they worked again with them with many in many African countries so he said to me have we faced with Wagner of course we did so he was being crippled what does that mean well he's been crazy I think he what he meant is sometimes doing meeting his bang bang bang and sometimes we meet and it's talk talk so that was an admission of Engagement with vodka group in African countries with the allusion to could have been talking could have been fighting so we don't know if he's met face to face with pregosian we don't know it's got its way of smiling where it's just one corner of the side of his mouth goes up and only a little bit and you're not quite sure you don't want to look at it you don't want to look at it too long that was going on when he was he was talking through that but one thing that he did want to talk to you about were some Russian leaks that they'd managed to get their hands on this is the Ukraine intelligence Services had managed to get hold of some very important Russian documents tell us a bit about those it's seen the gur had managed to intercept a Russian analysis of public support inside Russia at the peak of the Wagner mucini vis-a-vis which regions were supporting Putin and which were supporting pragosian the original analysis was done by the Russian Ministry of internal affairs the MVD which oversees all law enforcement and police activities in Russia now the MVD is Russians had done this analysis this was a secret analysis using basically social media intercepts and Russians have got huge powers and abilities in how they monitor Russian social media and what the sentiment analytics are On Any Given Day sentiment analytics is a kind of new generation word for what people feel and that's read according to what they're posting or what they're liking or how many hits they're getting on social media so it's not a perfect art but it's a pretty good art and it was not good news it proved that okay a majority of 21 Russian regions of 46 were supportive of Putin but not far behind 17 were supportive of progosian the other the unnamed regions were split 50 50. this is just areas within Russia outside in terms of republics places like Dagestan 97 of what the MVD could assess was supportive of progression I mean this is very anti-morscow anti-putin and then also Putin couldn't rely on the support Saint Petersburg his own manner now we can lose energy thinking well how did the gur get hold of these intercepts that's not so interesting I mean the spies they can do that kind of stuff are they really true those figures true I don't know was it something that buddhanov was trying to spin my way in order to make me believe something I don't know but what I do know is that Madonna believes that these figures suggest to him that Russia remains right for civil war and another crisis similar to the last one could lead to its implosion but he also believes that something he wants to achieve because he thinks they would end the war in Ukraine nor make the situation worse but end the war in Ukraine so does he think it would take a Civil War in Russia or for Putin to be pushed aside in some sort of coup that's what it would take to end the war in Ukraine that's what it would take for Ukraine effectively to win well when we spoke about the ways the war could end total victory for one side total victory for another but this kind of gridlock clinch of armies on the front he didn't like that analogy this clinch and he absolutely spoke of the need for a solar plexus blow to Russia and that wasn't going to happen on the zero point of the front line in eastern Ukraine that was going to be something else strategic targeting or the implosion of Russia do you think there's something in the idea that it'll be put on off and the intelligence Services who win this war rather than the military I think it's absolutely insane that some people suggest that the Ukrainian military with only a very little bit of time putting these heavy brigades together with new Weaponry learning how to coordinate and command and control without any air power can retake the whole of Ukraine or break through a line in a significant way that makes the Russians fall back and to expect that to work in a maximalist way like resulting in a total victory for Ukraine and the expulsion of all Russian soldiers from all of Ukraine and Crimea I think is ridiculously over optimistic if Russia can be made to suffer enough on the battlefields while parallel or something that gives it a real solar plexus blow then it might be possible to get Russia meaningfully to a negotiating table but for myself for my own opinion you know I've spent quite a lot of time there in the last year and a half just to expect Ukraine to be able to do this solely conventionally on the battlefield I think is a very tall order and very unlikely to happen so the efforts of the intelligence services will be key strategic targeting in-depth raids in Russia you know the direct action campaigns from the ukrainian's point of view they will see that as absolutely critical into in wrong footing Russia in ways that cannot be achieved by conventional Force of Arms on the battlefield and Anthony you talked about maximalist views of all of this I mean for badanov what would winning look like what would a Ukrainian Victory look like he's unequivocal for him winning is a total Victory and that's all Russian forces out of Ukraine and Crimea and all of sovereign Ukraine back under the control of Keith that's his view how he gets there is is rather different to the point of view of some other people who saw relying on the Ukrainian military to kind of do it all fight it all back but Donald thinks there are other ways to doing it and he clearly thinks that his lessons from the Mutiny from the Wagner Mutiny are that Russia his enemy is vulnerable on the inside and that's something that he wants to exploit not everybody sees it like that some native Powers were worried that Donald's a hot ahead and he might antagonize a nuclear power there are others who think that he's extremely effective he has regular meetings to the CIA but it was clear that he wasn't a big fan of every NATO he said I know who my allies are but not everybody in NATO is our allies it's quite interesting the NATO Summit was coming up in Vilnius a few days after we met and I said to him you know you're expecting anything big there and he was uh he said absolutely not I do not expect the aspirations of the Ukrainian people to be met vis-a-vis NATO membership and he said I know that's not going to happen because I've seen all the draft speeches already which I thought was quite funny I mean maybe that's not surprising for a spy Chief to see the draft speeches but I think it was quite funny he was like we're not going to get invited because I've seen the speeches he really does have access to everything so Anthony for him he can't rely on a military Victory he can't even rely on all of his NATO allies there's a lot riding on him and what his organization manages to achieve do you think he's got a chance of the kind of Victory he's hoping for I don't know but one thing I do know is that I always say this war is ruled by the dynamic of chaos it's not a a simple equation of to mathematical sides of sums of opposing forces and men and Munitions there are a lot of weird things into which you can't quite qualify very easy which is like emotion and will but then there are also wild cards like the Wagner group Mutiny well who saw that coming there are incidents like that which just catch everybody by surprise that have ramifications way down the line we still haven't seen all the Fallout from the Wagner Museum we haven't seen how the the sacking of some generals the imprisonment of other generals is going to affect and is going to impact on Russian forces in Ukraine yeah there are a lot of wild cards out there budarnov definitely represents the school of wild cards and it is a wild card that is more likely to end this war than a conventional Force [Music] you've been listening to stories of our times a podcast brought to you thanks to the subscribers of the times and the Sunday Times with me manvin Rana and my guest the times foreign correspondent Anthony Lloyd if you're a subscriber you can read more of his latest reporting from the war including a powerful account of the Forgotten widows of Ukraine the producer today was Priyanka daladia the executive producers were Kate Ford and Edward Drummond and sound design was by David crackles if you enjoyed this episode please do leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts thanks for listening see you tomorrow [Music]

Channel: Times Radio

Views: 679,565

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Id: CTz0gEdEqfY

Length: 31min 22sec (1882 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 25 2023