Ukraine’s Zelenskyy names GUR chief Kyrylo Budanov as top aide

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has named military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov as his new chief of staff as Ukraine and the United States work on a 20-point plan that could end Russia’s war.

“Ukraine needs greater focus on security issues, the development of the Defence and Security Forces of Ukraine, as well as on the diplomatic track of negotiations, and the Office of ​the President will primarily serve the ‌fulfillment of these tasks of our state,” Zelenskyy said on X on Friday.

“Kyrylo has specialized experience in these areas and sufficient strength to deliver results,” ‌he added.

The new post for the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) of the Ministry of Defence was announced at a key moment in the nearly four-year war with Russia after Zelenskyy announced on Wednesday that the United States-brokered deal to end the conflict was “90 percent” ready.

Budanov has been credited with a series of daring operations against Russia since it launched an all-out assault against Ukraine in 2022. The 39-year-old has run the GUR since being ⁠appointed to the post by Zelenskyy in August 2020.

A career military intelligence officer, Budanov rose through the defence establishment after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Budanov has become a prominent face of Kyiv’s intelligence effort, regularly appearing in interviews and briefings that mix strategic signalling with psychological pressure on Moscow.

He has frequently warned of Russia’s long-term intentions towards Ukraine and the region, while portraying the war as an existential struggle for the country’s statehood.

Budanov said he had accepted the nomination and would “continue to serve Ukraine”.

“It is an honour and a responsibility for me to focus on critically important issues of strategic security for our state at this historic time for Ukraine,” he said on Telegram.

Procedures to formally appoint him as the president’s chief of staff have been launched, Zelenskyy’s adviser Dmytro Lytvyn told journalists.

Zelenskyy also announced that Foreign Intelligence Service chief Oleh Ivashchenko will replace Budanov as head of the GUR.

Budanov will succeed Andriy Yermak, a divisive figure in Kyiv. He was decorated as a Hero ‍of Ukraine and known to be Zelenskyy’s most important ally, but he resigned in November after investigators raided his house as part of a sweeping corruption probe.

The scandal involving Yermak, who was also Kyiv’s lead negotiator in US-backed peace talks, fuelled public anger over persistent high-level corruption.

His opponents accused him of accumulating vast power, acting as a gatekeeper regarding access to the president and ruthlessly sidelining critical voices.

Zelenskyy also announced that he planned to replace his defence minister and had offered the position to his current minister of digital transformation, who is aged just 34.

“I have decided to change the structure of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address broadcast on social media. “I have offered Mikhailo Fedorov the position of new Ukrainian defence minister.”

Fedorov, who has been the digital transformation minister since 2019, is a relative political novice, little-known to the Ukrainian public.

“Mykhailo is deeply involved in issues related to drones and is very effective in the digitalisation of state services and processes,” Zelenskyy added.

Without explaining his decision to replace Denys Shmyal, the Ukrainian leader said he had proposed the incumbent “head another area of government work that is no less important for our stability”.

Russia attacks Kharkiv

Separately, on Friday, a Russian strike on residential buildings in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed two people, a woman and her son, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said in a post on Telegram.

Speaking earlier on Ukrainian television, Syniehubov said two ballistic missiles had struck the area and “nearly destroyed a five-storey dwelling”.

“Rescue teams are on site,” he said. “They are primarily clearing rubble and searching for people underneath.”

Ukraine’s State Emergency Services said it was deployed to find people it believed were still trapped under the ruins of the building.

Syniehubov earlier said 25 people were injured, with 16 in hospital, including a woman in serious condition. He said customers may have been at shops and a cafe on the building’s first floor when the explosion occurred.

The attack came a day after Russia accused Kyiv of a strike on a hotel and a cafe in Ukraine’s occupied southern Kherson region and warned of “consequences”. Ukraine said the attack targeted a military gathering that was closed to civilians.

Images captured by the AFP news agency from the site of the Russian strike in Kharkiv showed damaged multistorey buildings, piles of smouldering rubble, and firefighters tackling the blaze.

Zelenskyy called the attack “heinous” and said on social media that “preliminary reports indicate two missiles struck an ordinary residential area”.

“Unfortunately, this is how the Russians treat life and people – they continue killing, despite all efforts by the world, and especially by the United States, in the diplomatic process,” he added.

Russia denied the attack had taken place, adding that the damage there was likely caused by the detonation of Ukrainian ammunition.

“Information about a supposed strike on the city of Kharkiv on Jan. 2 by the Russian armed forces are not true,” Russia’s Ministry of Defence wrote on Telegram.

It said the reports sought to distract world attention from Ukraine’s strike on the Kherson region the previous day. The area’s Russia-installed governor told the state-run TASS news agency on Friday that the death toll in that incident had risen from 27 to 28.