Understanding the War of Disinformation Propaganda
On January 2, 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Lt. General Kyrylo Budanov to the position of Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, replacing Andriy Yermak. Yermak had held the office since 2020, until resigning in November 2025 under suspicions of corruption. The office is considered the most powerful in Ukraine next to the President.
Budanov had been Chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence for Ukraine since August 2020, which is generally considered the most powerful Ukrainian Intelligence Agency and reports to the Ministry of Defense rather than the Ukrainian military General Staff. The Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine is usually abbreviated to HUR, GUR, or DIU (English). The Russian equivalent is the GRU. The HUR is also roughly equivalent to the CIA and British MI6, which took over and reformed the HUR immediately following the Maidan Revolution and coup in February 2014. The CIA has been tightly linked to the HUR since 2014 and to Budanov at least since 2020. British MI6 provides personal security to President Zelensky. Zelensky’s presidential term expired in March 2024, but he has held power because of martial law declared in March 2022. Zelensky has also banned all opposition political parties and opposition media.
Lt. General Oleh Ivashchenko was appointed Chief of HUR in late 2025 to replace Budanov’s rise to Head of the Office of the President. Although reporting to the Defense Minister rather than directly to the President, the HUR is still considered both the most powerful intelligence agency and the most powerful Ukrainian government agency. Its mission is Military Strategic Intelligence and includes many special forces units, similar in many respects to the Russian GRU’s Spetsnaz, famous from Ian Flemmings novels on James Bond. During the Ukraine War under the command of Budanov, the HUR has participated in many special raids, assassinations, sabotage, bombings, and terrorist operations against civilians. Like the CIA and especially MI6, it has also been responsible for many false flag operations.
The February 2014 Maidan Revolution and coup forcibly removed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych elected in 2010 and replaced him with officials favorable to American foreign policy. Over 120 people were killed in street demonstrations and mob violence. Some were killed by snipers associated with para-military supporters of the coup. This coup was approved by Barack Obama and orchestrated by then Vice President Joe Biden, then Assistant Secretory of State Victoria Nuland, recent National Security Advisor to President Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt. U.S. State Department and CIA personnel were heavily involved, as were British MI6 operatives. The most important Ukrainian operatives were the ultra-nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party and the para-military ultra-rightist Right Sector. The beginning core of the special forces Azov battalions were also present and active. Both the Right Sector and Azov battalions were associated with neo-Nazi ideology. George Soros NGOs were involved as well, and some estimate Soros organization contributions totaled as much as $181 million with $80 million going to organizing and paying NGO demonstrators. According to Victoria Nuland, the U.S. invested $5 billion in USAID funds over two decades to make Ukraine “democratic and prosperous.”
The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU or SBU) is Ukraine’s primary internal security, counterintelligence, and national law enforcement agency. It is equivalent to the U.S. FBI and Department of Homeland Security and reports directly to the President of Ukraine. It is also roughly equivalent to the Russian FSB (formerly KGB) and British MI5. The Ukrainian SSU also has special forces troops. It is headed by Lt. General Vasyl Malyuk and has about 29,000 employees. It has often been involved in assassinations and terrorism in Russia.
The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (FISU or SZRU) also reports directly to the President of Ukraine and concentrates on more technical military, economic, and political foreign intelligence. It has about 4,000 employees and is headed by Oleksandr Kononenko.
There are several smaller agencies and Ukrainian military reserve units that fit into spying, sabotage, clandestine operations, political enforcement, and propaganda themes of Ukrainian war. However, in the interest of reasonable brevity, I will concentrate on a few involving HUR and SSU that drew global attention.
Many of these details came from a lengthy Report of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation dated September 12, 2024, and entitled Terrorist Crimes Committed by the Kiev Regime.
On August 20, 2022, Darya Dugina, 29-year-old daughter of prominent Russian conservative philosopher and author Aleksandr Dugin was killed in a fiery car-bomb blast as she drove away from a Tradition Festival near Moscow in her SUV. The 400-gram TNT equivalent explosive device was detonated by remote control. Many assumed that her famous father was the real target, but Darya was herself a brilliant scholar, writer, journalist, and activist media personality and organizer whose support for Vladimir Putin and the Russian military intrusion into Ukraine were well known. Western journalists have generally tried to demonize her father as an extremist, but he is highly respected in Russia and among conservative scholars around the world. The Russian FSB has identified the main assassins by means of surveillance footage, and passport photos. It named a woman, who was a member of the radical Azov Regiment, once branded as terrorist by the U.S. government. She escaped through Estonia. The FSB report also named a male assistant associated with a radical ideology and activism. He escaped through Ukraine to Turkey. The Russian FSB believes the hit was orchestrated by the Ukrainian SSU.
On March 22, 2024, four gunmen shot and killed 144 people and injured 551 at the Crocus City Hall west of Moscow. They then set the building on fire. An Afghan Islamic terrorist organization known as ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the terrorist act, but the Russians claim to have evidence that the shooters and their supporters were recruited and instructed by Ukrainian intelligence operatives. The four Tajikistan shooters were captured trying to escape into Ukraine. Altogether. 19 were arrested for suspected involvement. According to the report on Ukrainian terrorism cited above, the investigation proved that the Ukrainian Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense (HUR) was “directly connected” to the massacre. Further analysis of intercepted communications indicated that the Ukrainian SSU was also involved in providing significant cash and cryptocurrencies from Ukraine to finance preparation and execution of the massacre.
On April 2, 2023, pro-Russian, Donetsk Oblast-born Vladlen Tatarsky (born Maxim Fomin), an influential Russian military blogger with 560,000 followers on Telegram, was assassinated after speaking at a St. Petersburg café. Forty-two other people were injured by the bomb blast, of which 24 were hospitalized. Following his talk, Tatarsky was offered a statuette bust of himself by Darya Trepova, 26, which exploded with the force of 200-g TNT equivalent. She was convicted of murder and sentenced to prison in 2024. She was probably conned into doing this, but refused to share who her contacts were. The Russians have sound basis to believe the Ukrainian SSU was behind the assassination.
“On March 25, 2024, Vasiliy Malyuk, Head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) revealed details of the assassination attempts on Vladien Tatarsky , Zakhar Prilepin, Ilya Kiva, and others on the air of the United News Telemarathon, hinting at his agency’s involvement in these crimes. He also noted: ‘Officially, we will not admit to this. But at the same time, I can offer some details.”
According to the September 2024 Russian Foreign Ministry report on Kiev regime terrorism, at least 30 journalists have been assassinated by Ukrainian intelligence organizations.
Kyrylo Budanov had come to believe that Ukraine could not win a conventional war against Russia and was a strong advocate for discouraging Russian prosecution of the war by covert or high-profile unconventional warfare (including terrorist) means. Although he expresses much of the ideology common to the far-right neo-Nazis in western Ukraine, he has enemies and potential enemies among them. Someone tried to poison his wife. The same factions that have threatened President Zelensky’s life if he pursues peace, could also be a danger to him. Also, Ukraine continues to be one of the most corrupt nations in the world in both business and politics. Moreover, it is not an exaggeration to describe Ukraine has having a colonial status to the United States. The CIA and British MI6 have extraordinarily strong influence on Ukrainian political and military considerations.
Budanov has been described as smart and ruthless. During an interview with Yahoo News on September 8, 2023, he said:
"We have been killing Russians and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine."
In a brief interview following his appointment as Head of the Presidential Office and effectively Deputy CEO and COO of Ukraine, he surprisingly mentioned responsibility for negotiations but gave no defining detail.
It is essential to remember that Budanov is very close to the CIA and obviously has the approval of the CIA and undoubtedly British MI6.
It is also important to remember that developing and disseminating propaganda are dominant activities of the CIA. Ukrainian General Staff information releases are thoroughly subordinate to CIA objectives. The CIA is extremely powerful and not effectively checked by Congress or the President. Its primary weapon is disinformation, often undermining the character of its targets. Demonizing foreign leaders to effect regime change is common. According to Jeffrey Sachs, prominent Columbia University professor, economist, and foreign policy commentator, the CIA has attempted at least 100 regime changes since its creation in September 1947.
Moreover, CIA objectives and agenda may not coincide closely with President Trump’s objectives and agenda, nor the Constitutional and foreign policy framework necessary to maintain American peace, prosperity and democratic and republican process. Judging from some of President Trump’s remarks on Ukraine, he is either being inadequately briefed or misinformed by the CIA.
I strongly recommend the video interview below of Mike Betz, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State by Norwegian Professor of Economics and International Affairs Glenn Diesen, entitled, How NGOs and the CIA Hijacked Ukraine.
glenn diesen and mike betz - YouTube
This one hour and six minute video is a shocking revelation of how not just Ukraine foreign policy but U.S. foreign policy for decades has been hijacked by the CIA, George Soros NGOs, the National Endowment for Democracy, hedge funds, and corrupted politicians of both parties. This also exposes vast fortunes made through these corrupt political and business channels. Here is alternative access through Glenn Diesen’s Substack website.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/mike-benz-how-ngos-and-the-cia-hijacked
These are not pretty pictures of “Project Ukraine” and the enormous corruption of current U.S. foreign policy and its formidable dangers to American peace, prosperity, and survival.
“Falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land.—Jeremiah 9:3
“Error does not become Truth because it is widely accepted; Truth does not become error, even when it stands alone!”—John MacArthur
Mike Scruggs is the author of two books: The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths; and Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You, and over 600 articles on military history, national security, intelligent design, genealogical genetics, immigration, current political affairs, Islam, and the Middle East. 
