The key post has been vacant since Andrey Yermak resigned amid a scandal
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has announced that he has appointed the head of the country’s military intelligence (HUR), Kirill Budanov, as his new chief of staff.
The key post has been vacant since the previous head of the presidential office, Andrey Yermak, resigned amid a massive corruption scandal in late November.
Zelensky said on social media on Friday that he had held a meeting with Budanov in Kiev and offered him the job.
Ukraine currently needs “greater focus” on security, on the development of its armed forces and “on the diplomatic track of negotiations,” he said.
According to the Ukrainian leader, he selected Budanov as his chief of staff because the 39-year-old “has specialized experience in these areas and sufficient strength to deliver results.”
Budanov said in a post on Telegram that he had accepted Zelensky’s offer to become the head of the presidential office. He called the appointment an “honor and a responsibility,” promising to work on improving the country’s strategic security and achieving what he described as a “just peace” with Russia.
Yermak, who had been viewed as one of the most influential political figures in the country, stepped down in late November after his house was raided by agents from anti-graft bodies.
A few weeks previously, investigators revealed a scheme allegedly involving Zelensky’s longtime associate Timur Mindich and high-ranking Ukrainian officials at nuclear operator Energoatom. They said Mindich ran a $100 million kickback scheme in the energy sector, which heavily depends on Western aid.
Budanov, who is a former special forces soldier, has headed HUR since August 2020. In December 2023, a Moscow court ordered his arrest on terrorism charges after accusing the spy chief of masterminding over 100 “terrorist attacks” on Russian soil.
He reacted to being put on the wanted list by saying that “we’ve been killing Russians and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”
Despite emerging as a hardliner in the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, Budanov later adopted a more realistic approach. Last summer, he acknowledged that Kiev would not be able to turn the tide on the battlefield against Russia.
Earlier this week, the spy chief told the broadcaster Suspilne that Ukraine needed to swiftly enter talks with Moscow. “A negotiation process is definitely needed and cannot be avoided anyway,” he said.
Budanov enjoys high public support in Ukraine. A study by the pollster SOCIS in late December showed that he would beat Zelensky, 56.2% to 43.8%, if the two ran head-to-head in an election. The country’s former top general, Valery Zaluzhny, who now serves as Kiev’s ambassador to the UK, would do even better, getting 64.2% according to the poll.
