Budanov: In autumn of 2021, intelligence revealed Russia's plans to invade Ukraine

Budanov: In autumn of 2021, intelligence revealed Russia's plans to invade Ukraine

Exclusive
Ukrinform
In the autumn of 2021, defense intelligence made public the information about Russia's plans to invade Ukraine.

Kyrylo Budanov, Head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, said this in an interview with Ukrinform, commenting on General Serhii Naiev's remarks that on the eve of the war he hadn’t seen any official information or documents on when and from where the enemy would launch their offensive.

“Around October 2021, I had an interview in the United States, where I showed a scheme of how things would go down, what forces would be involved and in what areas the attack would unfold. This information had already been made public by that time. See, if we made something public, it means it had definitely circulated everywhere before that moment,” Budanov said.

Read also: Budanov about POW exchange: Some categories have become problematic

Earlier, General Serhii Naiev said in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda that the military had no document stating that Russia would launch an offensive on February 24, 2022.

In November 2021, in an interview with Military Times, Budanov outlined in detail Russia's plans to invade Ukraine in January or February 2022.

While citing and using any materials on the Internet, links to the website ukrinform.net not lower than the first paragraph are mandatory. In addition, citing the translated materials of foreign media outlets is possible only if there is a link to the website ukrinform.net and the website of a foreign media outlet. Materials marked as "Advertisement" or with a disclaimer reading "The material has been posted in accordance with Part 3 of Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine "On Advertising" No. 270/96-VR of July 3, 1996 and the Law of Ukraine "On the Media" No. 2849-Х of March 31, 2023 and on the basis of an agreement/invoice.

Online media entity; Media identifier - R40-01421.

© 2015-2025 Ukrinform. All rights reserved.

Extended searchHide extended search
By period:
-