War

One thousand four hundred and ten days. Zelensky appointed Budanov to replace Ermak. The head of the SBU is facing resignation

Since February 24, 2022, Meduza has been broadcasting live about the Russian-Ukrainian war. We publish your letters in our daily materials because we are sure that we need to continue talking about the war. The year 2025 ended amid unprecedented diplomatic activity and claims by the US and warring parties that this time they were truly close to achieving peace. Do you think these efforts will lead to real results? Do you hope for peace to arrive in the first months of 2026? The feedback form is at the end of this article. A review of the previous day can be read here .

Ukraine

On January 2, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky appointed Kirill Budanov, who previously headed the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR), as head of his office. The position has been vacant since late November, when Zelensky fired Andriy Yermak, one of the most influential people in Ukrainian politics, amid a corruption scandal.

According to Financial Times sources, Budanov doubted whether to agree to Zelensky’s proposal. As follows from the publication, the president put pressure on him for a month, insisting on his appointment. After the announcement of the appointment, Budanov said that he considered the new position “another line of responsibility to the country.”

Budanov, 39, is one of Ukraine’s most popular public figures: in public opinion polls about possible presidential candidates, he is in third place after Zelensky and former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny.

The Financial Times writes that under Budanov's leadership, the GUR has become a "modern intelligence agency" with strengthened ties to the CIA; at the same time, some of Ukraine’s Western partners sometimes warned Budanov against carrying out “especially daring operations” for fear of escalating the conflict.

Reshuffles in intelligence and government

On the evening of January 2, in an address to citizens of Ukraine, Zelensky announced a “wave of personnel changes” and a “significant reset” to make the country “more resilient.”

The post of head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, vacated after Budanov’s appointment to the presidential office, was taken by the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine Oleg Ivashchenko. Zelensky promised to name the new head of the Foreign Intelligence Service soon.

The reshuffle affected the Ministry of Defense: Zelensky proposed Minister of Digital Transformation Mikhail Fedorov as the new head of the department, explaining that he is “deeply involved in the issues of the Drone Line” and “works very effectively in the digitalization of government services and processes.”

Former Prime Minister Denis Shmygal, who had been Minister of Defense since the summer of 2025, was offered the post of Minister of Energy by Zelensky. The previous Energy Minister, Svetlana Grinchuk, left her post in November 2026 due to allegations of involvement in corruption.

Zelensky also said that he wants to “renew” the State Bureau of Investigation and plans to change the leadership of the border service.

On January 2, opposition deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak announced the possible mass dismissal of heads of regional administrations. Zelensky himself already announced the replacement of “some” regional leaders in December.

The head of the SBU is also facing resignation

According to Ukrainian journalists, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasily Malyuk may lose his post. Sources of Ukrayinska Pravda admit that he could become either the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service or the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. On January 3, commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces Robert Brovdi (call sign “Madyar”), commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Mikhail Drapaty, commander of Azov Denis Prokopenko , as well as the OSINT project DeepState, which is close to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, publicly spoke out in support of Malyuk.

War through the eyes of Meduza readers

How we choose letters

Meduza's readers live in different countries and have different attitudes towards the war. We publish your letters to see this event through your eyes. Our editors try to present all points of view, even if they do not coincide with the editorial position. However, in accordance with the Meduza code, we do not publish messages that contain “hate speech,” justify the murder of civilians, or express direct support for an aggressive war.

This letter contains obscenities.

Anonymous reader. I was waiting for the United States to attack Venezuela in order to see how the whole world would diligently look for reasons why the United States could do what they have been condemning Russia for for years and limiting the rights of one of the largest nations in the world […].

I have never particularly supported the current government, I have never particularly supported the opposition, and, naturally, I am against the war. War is hell, this should never happen.

But this happens all the time, every year, and when Russia began to fight with Ukraine... At first there was shock, horror, hatred and a lot of other emotions, but the further, the more the understanding came that there is no war in which only one side is to blame. You can demonize both Putin personally and Russia as a whole with all its inhabitants as much as you like, but the fact is that Ukraine is no less to blame for all this fucked up - and systematically walked towards this conflict, simply for some reason believing that the country is many times weaker than it is and will not dare to act.

But for some reason the whole world decided to pretend that only one side is to blame in this mutual story, so we can and should start oppressing people who simply live in the country in which they were born. And besides, how famously the entire world community divided entire nations into aggressor and victim and slipped into some kind of democratic racism, I was surprised how quickly in the eyes of my friends - even those who were quite strongly opposed and those whose rights were openly infringed by the current government (I’m talking about LGBT people) - the whole idea of ​​Western democracy collapsed and turned into shit.

All this talk about equality and tolerance turned out to be a lie, Western politicians turned out to be no better than Russian ones, the opposition fled their country and, sitting abroad, began to squabble with themselves, the media began to seem equally deceitful, despite the side they take. In general, all this so-called Western democracy began to seem like a kingdom of lies and duplicity, even to those people who did not listen to Russian propaganda and seemed to see a bright future in this very democracy.

It turns out that with these sanctions and restrictions, Western countries seem to have played along with the Putin regime, and every conflict that Western countries are now getting involved in with minimal condemnation from world society seems to make this regime even a little stronger, because even if you don’t support it, being Russian, you still can’t help but ask the question: “Why is it possible for them, but not for us?”

Naturally, with this text I do not want to downplay the horror of war for Ukraine. My heart aches every day both for the country in general, which I love very much, and for its people.

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