A senior Ukrainian official has admitted that his country has assassinated "quite a few" Russian civilians who support Putin and his war to assert control of the Donbas region. In interviews first reported by The Times of London, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, who heads Ukraine's military intelligence service, also promised more attacks are to come.
Budanov isn't merely an unapologetic terrorist, he's a boastful one. "These cases have happened and will continue," he said. "Such people will receive a well-deserved punishment, and the appropriate punishment can only be liquidation and I will implement it."
In a separate interview with a Ukrainian YouTube channel, Budanov said that any country could be witness to his killing of civilians who say or write the wrong things.
The head of Ukraine's military intelligence service, Major-General Kyrylo Budanov, admitted that several Kremlin propagandists have been assassinated since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Budanov also said that Ukraine wanted to establish a demilitarized border zone up to 60 miles inside Russia to reduce the chances of future attacks, The Times reports.
When asked whether Ukrainian security services had killed Russian propagandists, Budanov, 37, said: 'We've already successfully targeted quite a few people. There have been well-publicised cases everyone knows about, thanks to the media coverage.'
Several prominent pro-war figures have been killed or wounded by explosives in Russia since the start of the invasion on February 24 last year.
On May 6, Pro-Kremlin ideologist Zakhar Prilepin, 47, was left with multiple injuries after a car bomb attack.
The Russian writer and pro-war blogger's vehicle was blown up in a village in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region. He suffered fractures but his driver was killed in the incident.
Russian investigators said that they were questioning Alexander Permyakov, whom they accused of working with Ukrainian intelligence.
Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, a military blogger with close ties to Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed by explosives concealed within a statuette handed to him at a public talk that he was giving in a St. Petersburg cafe on April 2.
Later that month, a Russian court denied bail to 26-year-old Darya Trepova. She was charged with terrorism over the bomb attack that killed Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin.
Investigators said she was working on behalf of a pro-Ukrainian group with connections to jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny - claims rejected by Navalny's associates and Kyiv.
The Russian internal affairs ministry said yesterday that an arrest warrant had been issued for Yuriy Denisov, a Ukrainian citizen they claim kept watch over Tatarsky for two months from an apartment close to his home.
It alleged that he had made his way over from Latvia under instruction from the 'Ukrainian special services'.
In August last year, Darya Dugina, 29, the daughter of a close ally of Russia's President Vladimir Putin, was killed by a car bomb on a road outside Moscow.
It is thought that her father, the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who is known as 'Putin's brain', may have been the intended target.
Budanov claimed that the drone strikes that hit the Kremlin on May 3, apparently with the aim of killing Putin, were a result of 'Russian aggression'.
On Different People, a Ukrainian YouTube channel, Budanov said that recent acts of sabotage inside Russian territory, including attacks on oil and gas infrastructure close to the Ukrainian border and the derailment of a cargo train, were perpetrated 'almost 100 per cent by citizens of the Russian Federation'.
In another interview with a YouTube channel called Island, Budanov said he had 'a minority of Russians' co-operating with his Ukrainian military intelligence agency, the GUR.
He said they had 'patriotic reasons' for carrying out the acts and were 'ready to change Russia'.
Budanov said that although Putin was a legitimate target, Ukraine was not trying to kill him.
He said that his agents would keep setting their sights on Russians who committed "war crimes" against Ukraine.
He said: 'These cases have happened and will continue.
'Such people will receive a well-deserved punishment, and the appropriate punishment can only be liquidation and I will implement it.'
Budanov blamed Moscow's increasingly vicious tactics in Ukraine on Russian propagandists, arguing that Putin's chances of survival had been put at risk.
He said: '[The Kremlin] have invested so much in this propaganda machine that it began to influence them in the end.'
Budanov added that Russia's business elite was opposed to the invasion and was seeking ways to bring it to a close.
He argued that if the Russians managed to bring Putin's reign to an end, Ukraine would still have to set up a demilitarised zone 60 miles inside Russian territory to avoid fighting in the future.
He added: 'This should be our goal. If they are not going to attack and don't decide they want revenge in a couple of years, this shouldn't be an issue.'
HAL TURNER EDITORIAL OPINION
Well, well, well, there it is, spoken in public, for all to see and hear: Ukraine is intentionally MURDERING civilian news people/bloggers who dare to write in opposition to Ukraine. This is flat-out terrorist murder.
And YOUR American tax dollars are facilitating it!
This admission by the Chief of Ukraine Military Intelligence makes clear, by funding Ukraine, the Congress of the United States - both houses - as well as the Biden Administration, are literally facilitating MURDER.
