He and his spouse stared on the clock that evening, anxious that Budanov might quickly be out of labor if all didn’t go as he had loudly predicted to Ukraine’s skeptical political management.
“We’d had this dialog that if this assault doesn’t occur, we’re not going to look excellent,” he mentioned in a latest interview. “We had particularly mentioned that at 4 a.m. it might begin. It sounds actually bizarre, however I used to be scared it wouldn’t go because it ought to.”
Eleven months later, the 37-year-old Budanov’s phrases carry severe weight with President Volodymyr Zelensky and others in Kyiv. In Ukrainian political circles, he’s revered because the one particular person — together with U.S. and British intelligence — who appropriately warned months upfront what Russia was planning.
On the time, he was largely dismissed. Most different Ukrainian authorities and army officers anticipated Russia’s invasion to be restricted to the japanese a part of the nation moderately than a full scale, three-pronged assault.
Budanov’s forecast for this 12 months is that Russia will give attention to occupying extra territory within the japanese Donetsk and Luhansk areas. A renewed offensive from its forces stationed north of Ukraine, in Belarus, is unlikely, he mentioned, and simply an try and distract and divide Kyiv’s troops. He additionally mentioned that “we should do every little thing to make sure that Crimea returns house by summer season.”
Requested if he thinks Ukrainian troops reaching Crimea, which Russia invaded and annexed illegally in 2014, might set off Russian President Vladimir Putin to make use of a nuclear weapon, Budanov mentioned: “This isn’t true. And Crimea will probably be returned to us. I’ll let you know extra: It began in Crimea in 2014, and it’ll all finish there.”
“It’s a scare tactic,” he added, talking in his workplace, the place he retains a pet frog. “Russia is a rustic which you could count on lots from however not outright idiocy. Sorry, but it surely’s not going to occur. Finishing up a nuclear strike will lead to not only a army defeat for Russia however the collapse of Russia. And so they know this very nicely.”
Budanov’s different claims have included that Putin is terminally sick with most cancers and has a number of physique doubles. “It’s an open query if it’s the true Putin now,” Budanov mentioned. He’s so assured in his intelligence that he sometimes opens a folder to present precise figures — “roughly 326,000 Russian forces” preventing in Ukraine now or that Russia has simply 9 % of its inventory of Kalibr long-range missiles left.
Zelensky appeared to lean on his intel in a latest handle on the financial discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, when he mentioned he’s not certain Putin remains to be alive. (CIA Director William J. Burns has mentioned there is no such thing as a intelligence suggesting Putin is sick.)
“There are at all times doubts from others,” Budanov mentioned. “How efficient I’m on this place, that may most likely solely be evident sooner or later by historical past. I can’t objectively assess myself. Time will inform.”
Budanov’s fast rise to changing into one of many youngest generals in Ukraine’s historical past accelerated in August 2016, when a lieutenant colonel in Russia’s Federal Safety Service, or FSB, was killed in Crimea, allegedly by Ukrainian saboteurs. Budanov was believed to have been one of many Ukrainian particular operators concerned, working behind enemy traces, and he was later awarded Ukraine’s “Order of Braveness” for undisclosed operations. In 2020, then simply 34, he was named head of Ukraine’s Most important Directorate of Intelligence, or GUR.
Budanov remains to be coy concerning the particulars years later. He wouldn’t verify or deny the operation or his half in it. “One thing occurred,” he mentioned.
“And the entire makes an attempt on my life began after that,” he added.
In 2019, a bomb was positioned below his automotive however detonated prematurely. There have been at the very least 10 assassination makes an attempt, in accordance with an individual near Budanov.
Being marked for dying has led him to stay a cautious private existence, however dangerous operations are nonetheless his wheelhouse. Budanov lives at his workplace. He hardly ever goes out in public. Classical music performs round the clock in his workplace — maybe a protection towards any makes an attempt to pay attention to what is alleged inside.
He stays a goal for the Kremlin. After an explosion on the Crimean Bridge in October, Moscow named Budanov and different GUR brokers because the culprits.
Ukrainian officers, together with Budanov, haven’t publicly claimed duty for the bridge assault or others deep into Russian-held territory.
Two drone assaults in December on Russia’s Engels air base in Saratov, greater than 370 miles from the Ukrainian border, confirmed “that we now have the flexibility to achieve many kilometers [farther] than they might count on,” mentioned Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s nationwide safety and protection council.
Operations on international soil would technically fall below Budanov’s purview. Within the interview, he didn’t verify his particular forces had been behind the strikes, which focused strategic bombers Russia has used to hit Ukrainian cities, however he mentioned to count on extra and that Ukraine has brokers working inside Russia.
“This shattered their illusions of security,” Budanov mentioned. “There are individuals who plant explosives. There are drones. Till the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored, there will probably be issues inside Russia.”
He additionally steered that the Kremlin ought to worry collaborators in its midst. “There are certainly people who find themselves very straightforward to work with on that territory, individuals who perceive that Russia needs to be totally different,” he added. “And we help such folks.”
A portray in Budanov’s workplace hints at successes he can’t brazenly focus on. It options planes depicting the GUR evacuating folks from Afghanistan in the course of the fall of Kabul in 2021; Ukrainian helicopters representing the daring air missions by his forces to resupply encircled Ukrainian fighters on the Azovstal metal plant in Mariupol; and a satellite tv for pc, a nod to the reconnaissance his company conducts every day.
There are weapons stashed within the nook and bullets on his desk.
“What’s subsequent?” Budanov requested, repeating a request that he serve up additional predictions. “Ukraine’s victory,” he mentioned. “I’m not saying something new.”
Serhiy Morgunov in Kyiv contributed to this report.
