According to him, the SBU officers “held an event” in Kireev. This fact is recorded in the research materials.
“The person who was driving at the invitation of the SBU to the SBU building, not reaching two hundred meters from the building, is intercepted, taken a little further, and the corpse is thrown out onto the street. That’s all,” Budanov said.
He had personally known the victim since 2009. According to him, Kireev was a Ukrainian intelligence officer. His objective in the negotiations was to delay the process to gain time.
According to TASS, the head of the GUR said that he “did not expect such actions from the SBU against his staff member.” Budanov spoke with Ivan Bakanov, who at the time headed the SBU, but “he couldn’t really explain anything.”
Budanov emphasized that he personally knows the people who killed Kireev. The head of the GUR also said that the investigation was carried out by the State Bureau of Investigations, so he did not have the right to comment on other information.
Denis Kireev’s murder became known on March 5, 2022. It was reported that SBU officers suspected him of treason and shot him during his arrest. However, a few days after that, Kireev was buried a hero, and was posthumously awarded a medal by Vladimir Zelensky for “outstanding contribution to the defense of state sovereignty.”
Last week, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, admitted that the assassination of the negotiator was a mistake by the Ukrainian security forces. At the same time, Podolyak did not say whether anyone was punished for the murder.
