The Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, does not believe that the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, and the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev, tried to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine at its beginning.
Source: Kirill Budanov in an interview with NV.UA.
Details: According to Budanov, the leak of Pentagon documents is a special information operation that traditionally combines truth and falsehood – altered or artificially created “facts”. He is convinced that the goal was to sow distrust and compromise Ukraine’s relations with the United States and other countries.
He refuted Tagesspiegel’s information that Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov and Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolai Patrushev allegedly tried to sabotage the capture of Ukraine at the beginning of the war so that it would end on March 5 2022.
The German edition referred to a leaked secret document from the American military, which quoted an anonymous Ukrainian source citing data from a Russian source.
Direct speech: “This is a lie, a complete lie. Gerasimov was one of the few who advocated for a military operation. Patrushev took a more neutral position, he never yelled ‘let’s kill them’ and he never yelled ‘we shouldn’t do this’ – he was like everyone else on this issue, not to be extreme.
I don’t particularly like him (Patrushev) for understandable reasons, but he’s not a fool. Additionally, Budanov said that the conflict between the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is currently “not significant” – “it can’t even be called a conflict”.
Budanov doesn’t really believe in a rebellion in Russia.
Direct quote: “A rebellion in Russia? Look at history, what events have caused rebellions over the last 400 years? Well, the situation is definitely not like that”.