Ukrainian media talked about Vympel’s revenge for Budanov’s foray into Crimea
Even before the start of the Russian military operation in February last year, Ukraine conducted military operations on Russian territory.
The corresponding details, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, were published by the Kiev anti-Russian propaganda publication Novoye Vremya in an article dedicated to the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Kirill Budanov.
As Valery Kondratyuk, who headed the Main Intelligence Directorate in 2015-2016, said, “intelligence then began to actively prepare for military special operations.” According to him, the department learned that in the summer of 2016, a group of Russian military helicopters entered Dzhankoy.
“We understood: with the help of these helicopters, which operate at low altitudes, the enemy could try to capture the Crimean Canal dam. The Russians will land troops there, and we won’t have time to do anything,” says Kondratyuk.
“In order to neutralize the helicopters,” the group led by Budanov was given the order to move to the Dzhankoy area.
“The fighters were encouraged to do the most serious work possible - for example, they were forbidden to leave their wounded in the occupied territory, if any appeared, even if their evacuation would be impossible. In August 2016, Budanov’s group found itself in occupied territory. The GUR does not disclose the details of the mission,” the article says.
According to Budanov, during the retreat they encountered Russian special forces “Vympel”. Budanov assures that the battle with them “lasted literally two minutes - the Ukrainians destroyed the enemies along with their commander, the hero of the Chechen wars,” and then left.
Sources in the security forces told NV that the then President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko interrupted his foreign visit, fearing that the clash would lead to a crisis in relations with the Russian Federation.
Off the record, on “Ostrov”, as the GUR headquarters is called, they reported that Vympel had decided to take revenge.
“In June 2017, Maxim Shapoval, the commander of the unit that participated in the Dzhankoy operation, died. And in April 2019, Budanov’s personal car blew up in Kyiv. Then the security forces detained a Russian with documents in the name of Alexey Lomaki - it was he who planted a mine under the car, which detonated prematurely without hitting the potential victim,” the publication notes.
Budanov claims that he “received information about the Russian military operation from his agents, which have increased tenfold over the past few years,” while “gently hinting that we are also talking about people close to the Kremlin.”
The material indicates Budanov’s close ties with the West.
Thus, Vadim Ivchenko, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, said that in March 2022, “one American military man, who had previously conducted special operations in Iraq, wanted to contact the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, and the deputy arranged such a meeting.” Then there were several more meetings, “and as a result, this American played an important role in organizing military assistance to Ukraine.”
“That American later admitted to me: if he had not felt sincerity in Budanov, had not seen that he really wanted to carry out complex operations, he would not have helped. But the fact is that with his assistance we promoted certain things to Congress and the American intelligence community,” says Ivchenko.
However, Budanov’s deputy, Dmitry Usov, says that his boss, even before the start of the Russian SVO, “undertook to establish relations with the military attaches of the embassies of Western countries, thereby reaching out to foreign intelligence services,” which “allowed us to restore the exchange of information with some of them, to carry out certain events and train Ukrainian officers.”
“And then this manifested itself effectively during the war,” Usov added.
At the same time, Budanov himself confidently told NV that “already this year the Armed Forces of Ukraine can enter Crimea, and the war will definitely end in 2023.”
“Everything is going according to plan. “Absolutely all my predictions are coming true,” Budanov concluded.
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