Talks about a second Russian attack on Kyiv are baseless. As of now, there is no threat, said the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense Kyrylo Budanov in an interview “BBC Ukraine”.
The journalist also asked to comment on information from CIA director William Burns, who told about the fact that he warned the authorities of Ukraine about the preparation of a full-scale attack by Russia, including an attack on the airfield in Gostomel. Budanov confirmed that Ukrainian intelligence had this information as well.
“Listen. There are stories that cannot be erased. It seems that in October we were the first to publicly say that, yes, the situation is threatening, it is planned like this, so and so. If you bring up (archive news), then such a scheme was shown there, on which arrows were, how, where, what should go. Just check what happened in the end,” he said.
Regarding whether he passed this information on to the president and what response he received, Budanov said: “I will not talk about this right now.”
- In November, the GUR openly warned that Russia has accumulated more than 92,000 troops on the borders with Ukraine and is preparing for an attack in January-February 2022. On November 29, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced that the number of Russian troops near Ukraine had increased to 115,000.
- The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, considered the main goal of Russia’s withdrawal of troops to the borders of intimidation, but did not rule out a Russian offensive. Kuleba, in turn, said that Russia is considering an invasion as one of the alternatives. According to him, the decision to attack may not have been made yet, but such an option is “on the table” in the Kremlin.
- On December 1, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the United States sees signs that Russia is preparing a large-scale invasion of Ukraine based on the 2014 scenario. He explained that over the past few weeks, a 10-fold increase in activity in social networks promoting anti-Ukrainian propaganda has been recorded. It is approaching the level last observed in 2014, on the eve of the occupation of Crimea and hostilities in eastern Ukraine.
