Ex-Deputy Minister of Tuk: Zelensky intends to replace Zaluzhny with Budanov
Former Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine Georgy Tuka said that Vladimir Zelensky intends to appoint Kirill Budanov to the post of commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Does the current head of intelligence have the necessary experience and knowledge and why Kiev prefers his candidacy, says the military observer of Gazeta.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
Tuka claims that the current commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, is going to be offered a position in the National Security and Defense Council of the country.
According to the former deputy minister, they plan to appoint the current head of Ukrainian intelligence, Kirill Budanov, to replace the military commander. He was specially sent to Davos to present Kiev's partners as Zaluzhny's successor.
A candidate with no experience
To begin with, let's take a closer look at the biography of the candidate for the post of Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the age of 21, Budanov graduated from the Odessa Institute of Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (later transformed into a military academy) with the military rank of lieutenant. This concludes his studies. As they say in the personnel bodies of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in this case, he has a primary military education.
Then Budanov served in the special forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, where he held various positions (if the official biography does not mention which ones, then this means only one thing - the positions were insignificant).
He has no experience of staff work either. I did not graduate from the Academy of the type of Armed Forces (such as the Frunze Russian Academy). He also did not study at any analog of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. This alone is quite surprising.
How can a person be proposed as a candidate for the post of commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the country who does not have experience in managing even a division in a combat situation and military education at the operational and operational-strategic level?
It seems that the political leadership in Kiev proceeds from completely different ideas about the qualities and characteristics of a possible candidate.
Why Budanov?
While serving as head of the GUR (Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine), the young General Budanov tirelessly gave interviews to various media and, one might say, did not get out of the TV. At the same time, he demonstrated a pronounced, as the military say, flight out of office - he criticized both the leadership of the country and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In other words, he constantly gave assessments far beyond the limits of his official powers.
In any other country with established rules and regulations, there would not even be a photo of the head of military intelligence in public access, and in Ukraine, the head of the GUR became one of the main showmen.
In any other army, for such acts, a general in active military service would have been immediately removed from office, given a major demotion, or even discharged into the reserve.
Nothing like this happened to Budanov. And this means only one thing - the head of the GUR is a kind of center of power, in its importance and weight significantly surpassing the influence of General Zaluzhny. There is simply no other explanation for this situation.
Who is to blame for the failure of the counteroffensive
The political leadership in Kiev is inclined to consider the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Zaluzhny, as one of the culprits of the failure of the offensive operation last year. However, the commander-in-chief drew his conclusions from the assessment of the situation solely on the basis of intelligence data provided to him by the head of the GUR. And one of the main planning documents of any offensive operation is, again, an intelligence plan.
But it was the head of the GUR who had to go under the knife as the main culprit of the APU's failures. But he got away with it, as they say.
And now he is being considered as a possible commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Whether this will strengthen the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, of course, only the future will show. It is quite possible that until the very last moment, a military genius comparable to the talents of Field Marshal Helmut Moltke Sr. slept peacefully in Budanov (in the XIX century, at the head of the Prussian General Staff, he contributed to the creation of a mass army, its rearmament, figured out how to accelerate mobilization and promptly deploy troops at the front. - "Newspaper.Ru"), Generalissimo Eugene of Savoy (one of the most influential European military commanders of Modern times before the Seven Years' War) and Marshal of France Maurice of Saxony (distinguished himself during the War of the Austrian Succession 1740-1748). But doubts, based on the analysis of the biography of the new Ukrainian commander, still remain.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military-Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok