No, the head of Ukrainian intelligence, Budanov, did not threaten to massacre the three million inhabitants of Crimea

A short, 39-second-long video began to spread on Czech Twitter and Facebook, showing a cut excerpt of journalist Dmitri Komarov’s interview with the head of the main intelligence service of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (GUR) Kyryl Oleksiyovych Budanov.

According to disinformers, it is supposed to be Budanov’s answers to Komarov’s three questions. The video is accompanied by disinformation posts unified Czech transcription, which looks like this:

• Interviewer: “Which city in Crimea will you go to after victory?”
• Budanov: “To Sevastopol, that’s my hometown. I was born in Kiev, but spent my childhood there.’
• Questioner: “Three million disloyal people will return to us…”
• Budanov: “These are not disloyal people… These are people with a disturbed psyche.”
• Interviewer: “And what are you going to do with them?”
• Budanov: “That’s simple. We will bring them to justice. Just responsibility in our concept for certain people for their actions can only be physical liquidation. There will be a lot of work.”

“He wants to kill Crimea”

Pro-Russian disinformers (for example, the anonymous disinformation Twitter account Klaudis @Ostravajda with more than 900 followers) thus indicate that the head of the GUR is going to slaughter the people of Crimea.

Various Russian propaganda websites began to claim the same even before Aeronet and Czech disinformation – according to the Baltic news website Delfi, it was, for example, the Crimean division of the Russian news agency RIA Novosti or the websites Vzgljad, Arguments and Facts, Sevastopol News, EADaily and many others.

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However, according to Delfi reporter Ilya Bera, these media mostly did not publish the video interview itself or a link to it, and mentioned the quote attributed to Budanov in connection with how the Crimean deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Sheremet, reacted to it. He called the head of Ukrainian military intelligence a zombie.

In addition to Twitter, the edited video also began to spread on the Russian social networks Telegram and Vkontakte, where it appeared even before the media began to write about it in connection with Sheremet’s reaction. According to Ilya Ber, some posts even tried to increase his emotional charge with the most terrifying headlines possible, such as: “The head of Ukrainian intelligence has promised to execute every Crimean.”

But it’s all a lie, created by purposeful editing.

It’s different

Kyrylo Budanov actually gave an interview to Dmitry Komarov, and he published it on May 19 on his YouTube channel The World Inside. The video, which subsequently spread across social networks, was purposely edited from different parts of the recording. When asked about the people of Crimea, Budanov actually answered at 38:08 that they are three million people who have been under the influence of propaganda for nine years and talk about how to reintegrate them into Ukrainian society after the victory.

Full uncut video of the interview:

Source: Youtube

In fact, the transcript of the incriminating passage of the interview reads as follows:

• Budanov: “There will be a lot of work.”
• Komarov: “Besides the return of three million not-so-loyal people…”
• Budanov: “These are not very loyal people, they are people with already changed psyches.” Not even ideology, psyche.’
• Komarov: “And what can be done with them?”
• Budanov: “Those who can be reeducated.”
• Komarov: “With a whip or with sugar?” (In Russian with a whip or a gingerbread man, editor’s note)
• Budanov: “Everything. Both with a whip and with sugar. One does not work without the other.”

The sentence talking about physical liquidation actually appears in the interview 19 minutes earlier (at 19:03), in response to a completely different question, namely how to deal with the perpetrators of war crimes in Buč.

• Komarov: “We already know some of the faces of those who committed atrocities in Buča, and you also published them…”
• Budanov: “Yes, the book of executioners is continuously updated.”
• Komarov: “And the Enemies section is also on the GUR website. What are the next steps?’
• Budanov: “That’s simple. We will bring everyone to justice. And in our opinion, such just responsibility for certain individuals for the acts they have committed can only be physical liquidation.”

According to Ilya Ber from the Baltic website Delfi, the distortion of Budanov’s answers appeared for the first time probably already on the night of May 20, when, for example, on the Rutube (Rutube.ru is the Russian equivalent of Youtube, i.e. a social video network, editor’s note) channel Kirill Fedorov / Válečná the history of weapons discovered a session beginning with the sentence “Budanov announces genocide if he enters the territory of the Luhansk Republic, the Donetsk Republic and Crimea.”

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At noon the next day, a edited video appeared, from which Budanov’s rather lengthy discussion about the future reintegration of the Crimean population was cut out and a part of the answer to Komarov’s question regarding the Bucha war criminals was inserted in its place. “In this form, the video was apparently first published on the ZeRada Telegram channel, from where its viral media journey began,” notes Ber.

A man of sharp words and actions

Thirty-seven-year-old graduate of the Military Academy in Odessa and the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, is famous among journalists for his sharp comments. This April, for example, he attracted international attention with his statement that Ukraine has a chance to regain Crimea and restore its original borders from 1991 by the end of this year. He also mentioned the reintegration of Crimea and Donbass as his main goal when he was appointed to head military intelligence in 2020.

Diary against fake news.Source: DiaryBudanov also figures in the recently published leaks of communications by American intelligence services, according to which he was planning to attack Moscow on February 24, the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine this year. In this context, the American newspaper The Washington Post reported that Ukrainian intelligence had temporarily abandoned this plan only at the insistence of Washington.

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In 2019, Budanov survived an assassination attempt when his company car was blown up by a bomb attached to the chassis. But it exploded prematurely and Budanov was not in the car yet. Two citizens of the Russian Federation were sentenced to seven and eight years in prison for the attack.

In contrast, the Russian court issued a remote arrest warrant for Budanov, whom it blames for the attack on the Kerch bridge connecting Russia with the annexed Crimea. The attack took place on October 8, 2022, the day after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday.