Kyrylo Budanov, set to become Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s new chief of staff, is a secretive figure who rose from relative obscurity to become head of Kyiv’s formidable spy agency.
Referred to as the man “without a smile” in Ukrainian media, the 39-year-old has revealed little about his background or personal life and maintains a low profile.
But he is credited with some of Kyiv’s most audacious attacks inside Russia and occupied Ukrainian territory — including an explosion on the Russian-built Crimean Bridge in 2022.
Regarded as a legend among Ukrainians but a wanted criminal in Russia, the combat veteran will now have unparallelled access to Zelensky and be at the steering wheel of the presidency — a prospect that Moscow may find troubling.
“We will continue to do our job — to defeat the enemy, defend Ukraine and work to achieve a just peace”, Budanov said after accepting Zelensky’s nomination.
Budanov was unknown to the public when he was appointed head of Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence service in August 2020.
Head of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov
Originally from Kyiv, he studied at a military academy in Odesa before being deployed to fight Russian-backed separatists in east Ukraine in 2014.
The only scrap of information about his activities there was that he took part in a commando raid in Moscow-annexed Crimea in 2016 in which some Russian agents were killed.
Budanov himself does not say much about his service except for revealing he was injured three times — including once with shrapnel close to his heart.
A gunshot wound to the elbow has left him with a visible stiffness in his right arm.
According to a GUR spokesman, he has been the target of “more than 10” attacks.
In 2019, his car exploded in Kyiv — an attack attributed at the time to Russian security services.
He became one of Ukraine’s youngest generals aged 35. Months before Russia’s war in February 2022, he predicted a large-scale attack when the rest of the world was in denial about Moscow’s intentions.
Meanwhile, Russian missile strikes on a multi-storey building in Kharkiv in north-eastern Ukraine on Friday has injured at least 15 people, local governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
“Preliminarily, the Russian army launched two strikes with ballistic weapons”, he said on the Telegram messenger.
“There is information that people are still trapped under the rubble. Search operations are ongoing”, Syniehubov added. — Reuters
