Ukrainian spy chief defiant as military grapples with shortages

"The Russians would be very happy to freeze every‐ thing how it is now," Ukrainian military intelli‐ gence chief Lt.-Gen. Kyrylo Budanov said recently when asked for some in‐ sight into current Russian thinking.

"To have us recognize the territory they've taken as Russian. And they would cel‐ ebrate their victory," he said in an interview with CBC News at his base in Kyiv on Monday.

"It will never happen," he added.

Budanov was speaking the day after Ukrainian Presi‐ dent Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a news conference in Ky‐ iv that 31,000 Ukrainian sol‐ diers have been killed in fighting since Russia's fullscale invasion of Ukraine two years ago.

It was a rare disclosure of a number and a considerably lower one than that esti‐ mated by American officials, who have put it at more than double that.

"Thirty-one thousand Ukrainian soldiers have died in this war," said Zelenskyy. "Not 300,000 or 150,000, or whatever [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his lying circle are saying. But each of these losses is a great loss for us."

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Ukraine is under increas‐ ing pressure in the two-yearold conflict after its fall counter-offensive failed to pierce Russian front lines in the south and east of the country. It is struggling to deal with a lack of weapons, lack of soldiers and lack of in‐ ternational aid, according to Ukrainian officials.

Zelenskyy also told the media that the plans for Ukraine's counter-offensive had found their way to a desk in the Kremlin before it even began.

"I'm not going to say more than the president," Budanov said when asked about the intelligence leak.

"We had, let's say, infor‐ mation, evidence, that the plans became known to the Russian federation. It is a se‐ rious problem, and we are taking some action."

Youngest chief of de‐ fence intelligence

At 38, Budanov is the youngest head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence, ap‐ pointed to the post by Zelen‐ sky in 2020 and has already received three stars.

He began his military ca‐ reer as a special operative and fought against Russian proxy forces in the east after Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

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A recent report by the New York Times identified Budanov as one of the mem‐ bers of an elite force within the intelligence trained by the CIA in the past.

Budanov is credited with increasing Ukraine's drone capability, reportedly orga‐ nizing more than 100 drone strikes on Russian soil and in

Russian occupied parts of Ukraine.

But he recognizes the problem. "Drones will never replace ground troops," he said. "It is only a way to sup‐ port them."

"With the help of a drone you can inflict losses on the enemy. But until, like in me‐ dieval times, a soldier comes and plants a flag, nothing will change."

Cryptic figure in the spotlight

At a government conference preceding the Zelenskyy media event, which brought nearly 30 government minis‐ ters and officials together to discuss the war effort for the year ahead, Budanov was one of the panellist and mobbed by journalists on the sidelines of the conference.

For someone used to op‐ erating in the shadows quite literally, one journalist reported that Budanov or‐ dered the lights off during an

interview because he prefers the dark - the intelligence chief seems to seek out the public spotlight.

He's known for his cryptic social media posts timed with Ukrainian operations and enjoys widespread popu‐ larity in Ukraine.

A small statuette of a wolf in sheep's clothing is perched above the security x-ray ma‐ chine when entering the building housing Budanov's offices.

The ante-chamber to his office was dark as advertised, lit by the screen of a giant TV playing what looked to be a fantasy movie and a map of Ukraine lit with little red dots marking activity.

Rumoured power strug‐ gle

Earlier this year Budanov was touted as a potential replace‐ ment for Ukraine's then com‐ mander in chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhnyi amidst rumours that Zelenskyy was unhappy with the war's progress.

Zelenskyy did replace Za‐ luzhnyi in early February, al‐ though not with Budanov. Stories in the media specu‐ lated that Zelenskyy was jeal‐ ous of Zaluzhnyi's popularity and feared him as a potential political rival in the future.

There have also been re‐ ports that some of those threads were part of a Russ‐ ian misinformation campaign directed at the Ukrainian president.

One of the disputes be‐ tween Zelenskyy and Zaluzh‐ nyi that spilled into the public domain has been over mobi‐ lization, Ukrainian troops not only outgunned but outmanned by its much larger neighbour.

Zelensky said in Decem‐ ber that the military was ask‐ ing for some 450,000 con‐ scripts. Zaluzhnyi denied the ask.

Asked about the apparent rift, Budanov said there could hardly be personal differ‐ ences between the men when one of them was "a di‐ rect subordinate to the oth‐ er."

He also implied that Ze‐ lenskyy had made the right decision in replacing Zaluzh‐ nyi.

"If everything is good and everything is wonderful and everything is done correctly, then why are we in the situa‐ tion we are in?" he said.

Regardless of the spat's perceived origins, it has un‐ derlined the more precarious place Ukraine finds itself in as it faces a third year of con‐ flict.

The slow drip arrival of ar‐ tillery ammunition and other promised military aid from Western nations, including the United States, is an in‐ creasingly desperate prob‐ lem for Ukraine as its troops run low on the means both to advance and to protect themselves.

On Sunday, Ukrainian De‐ fence Minister Rustem Umerov said that 50 per cent of commitments from West‐ ern allies have not been de‐ livered on time.