KYIV (Realist English). Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Oleh Ivashchenko has been appointed head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR), effective December 2.
Ivashchenko replaces Kyrylo Budanov*, who earlier accepted Zelensky’s offer to become head of the Office of the President.
“From today, Oleh Ivashchenko will continue serving our state and carrying out tasks aimed at limiting Russia’s military potential in his new role within Ukraine’s military intelligence,” Zelensky said in an evening address.
The president added that Ivashchenko, earlier the same day speaking in his capacity as head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, briefed a high-level meeting on the overall security situation around Ukraine and current security threats.
Zelensky stressed that one of the key priorities for Ukraine’s intelligence agencies remains reducing Russia’s economic capacity. “The fewer resources Russia receives, the broader the opportunities for diplomatic pressure,” he said, highlighting measures aimed at restricting and lowering the profitability of Russian oil exports.
A similar approach, he said, will be applied to Russia’s defence-industrial complex. Zelensky thanked the Foreign Intelligence Service for its analytical work and intelligence support in this area.
*Kyrylo Budanov has been added by Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) to its list of terrorists and extremists.
