“The new head of the Office of the President, Kyrylo Budanov, in his previous position as the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence, was one of the few representatives of the Ukrainian authorities who maintained contacts with people from the team of the US President Donald Trump, in parallel with the former head of the OP Andriy Yermak, who tried to keep all the negotiations to himself.ā, ā write: www.pravda.com.ua
The new head of OP Kyrylo Budanov and President Volodymyr Zelenskyi. OP’s photo Source: Ukrainian Pravda article “Everyone will transfer. What is the purpose of Zelensky’s “reboot” of Budanov, Fedorov, Shmyhal, Malyuk and others”
Verbatim from the article: “The new head of the Office of the President in the previous position was one of the few who dared to keep in private contact parallel to Yermak with different camps in the Trump team: from General Keith Kellogg to the team of Vice President Vance. Although Yermak directly and through the president constantly tried to block these channels.”
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Details: Also, according to interlocutors of the UP, over the past year the head of the GUR has repeatedly tried to convey to the president the real picture of how Yermak is treated in the States, how his manner of conducting negotiations and his ability to do such work are evaluated in general.
It is noted that Budanov has two big advantages in the eyes of the Americans: he has a realistic view of the state of affairs in the war and is not involved in the latest high-profile corruption scandals. And this “makes it possible to adequately conduct negotiations with him” without having “reputational risks”.
“In addition, Budanov is almost the only one in the country who has direct working contacts with the Russians. He communicated with them about prisoner exchanges and, for example, held separate face-to-face negotiations in the UAE during the latest wave of diplomatic efforts by the new US team,” the article says.
Therefore, according to the author of the publication, the main changes brought about by the appointment of Budanov as the head of the OP should be the strengthening of the negotiating group and the “decentralization” of contacts with the Americans.
It is noted that the external track was one of the main reasons for accepting the new position for the newest head of the OP.
Currently, Budanov, in his role as the head of the President’s Office, will actually lead the negotiations on the end of the war, guarantees from the US and partners, and other security issues from the Ukrainian side.
Prehistory:
- On January 2, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he had appointed Budanov as the head of the Office of the President to replace the dismissed Andriy Yermak.
- Budanov himself said that he accepted Zelensky’s offer to head the Office of the President and considers it an honor.