This fight over the future of Ukraine is intensifying.
Not only on the frontline, or between local power centers in Kiev, but also between the security services of the Anglo-American ‘allies’.
On Wednesday Kiev experienced a gun fight between units of the main (military) intelligence service GRU and forces of the internal security service (SBU) of Ukraine.
The confusing incident has a multifold background. Events in Ukraine attempts to summarize the reasons:
First, the old conflict between the SBU and the GUR. In this case, it’s actually a question of the SBU and the new GUR leadership against the old leader of the GUR, Kirilo Budanov, and the legions of GUR warriors who remain loyal to Budanov. On the side of the SBU, we have its ruthless leader Oleksandr Poklad, also known as ‘the Strangler’.
Mapping onto this first conflict is a second one. On the side of the SBU is Zelensky’s power clan, which has long been frustrated with Budanov’s excessive ambitions. The fact that Budanov still wields a private army of prominent, ideologically fanatical warlords displeases the president and his private court. Budanov has also been trying to foil Zelensky’s plan to appoint the ultra-loyal Poklad as de jure head of the SBU. …
Third and most importantly, revenue. More precisely, competition over control of the highly lucrative scam call centre business, which employs around 60,000 Ukrainians and brings in $1 billion USD a month. The Europeans have been pushing Zelensky to crack down on the industry, which very obviously operates with the sanction of Ukraine’s ‘law enforcement’ agencies, particularly the GUR and SBU.
There have previously been such incidents between the GRU and SBU. One shootout was over the control of a luxury vacation retreat. Others over more valuable businesses:
Today’s shootout comes right as Zelensky announced a new law to target the scam call centres. Just in time, because over the past few months, there has been a spate of terrorist attacks and murders around the world, all linked to the GUR and its scam call centres — torture and decapitation in Bali, explosions in Monaco, and worst of all, naive European burghers scammed out of their savings. Constantly linked with this transnational web of violence is the GUR’s bizarre menagerie of fanatical warlords, along with more traditional mafia bosses.
These mafia like turf wars have long become normal in Ukraine.
But there is more behind the recent one than a hassle about phone scam revenues.
As head of the GRU Kirilo Budanov had become a serious competitor for the (acting) president Vladimir Zelinski. He was promoted away from the GRU, and thereby cut off from most of his resources and soldiers, to lead the office of the president. While this is a powerful position, the step was taken to keep Budanov under control.
Even deeper behind this is a fight between the Zelenski allies in the British MI6, and the CIA over who is to take the lead in Ukraine.
As Black Mountian Analysis writes:
The notion that Ukraine operates as a fully sovereign entity making independent decisions is contradicted by the pervasive influence of Western intelligence services, particularly Britain’s MI6. Ukraine’s wartime strategy is largely shaped from abroad, with British intelligence deeply embedded in the country’s military and political decision-making.
Zelenski, and the SBU, are more or less MI6 agents.
The CIA, and the White House behind it, want their man, Kirilo Budanov, to take control and to find some arrangement with Russia.
Zeleniski is supposed to be pushed aside.
Witness this broadside by the U.S. steered Atlantic Council in a recent Foreign Policy piece (archived):
[S]ince last summer, public unhappiness with the charges of corruption in the Zelensky inner circle and the recent firing of Fedorov has solidified the public’s turn away from Zelensky.
…
There are two ways of resolving this problem. The first—a wartime election—has little support among Ukrainians, remains logistically complex, and is currently illegal. The second is to reboot the system of governance by reducing presidential involvement in running the domestic government agenda, creating a government of national unity, and opening the door to a pool of effective and untainted officials from rival parties and the vast pool of effective officials whom Zelensky has dismissed because he saw them as potential competitors.Unfortunately, nothing suggests that Zelensky can take such a step. … The time for centralized rule through a small group of cronies has long passed, and Western leaders and his own people should press him at every opportunity to take steps to ensure national unity and effective governance.
This line of thought has been promoted for a while by various western paid NGOs in Kiev. Zelenski is to be kept in place as a ceremonial head of state while the real business should be done by some kind of (U.S. controlled) committee.
Coincidentally (not) – just a day after the anti-Zelenski screed was launched via Foreign Policy, the New York Times published a pro-Budnaov piece:
After Fighting Russia Fiercely, He Wants to Forge Ukraine’s Path to Peace – NY Times, Sep 4 2026
Kyrylo Budanov, a decorated soldier and former military spy chief, advocates a negotiated settlement. Talks are expected to resume this month.
Mr. Budanov, 40, serves as President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff and is a lieutenant general in the Ukrainian military. As he advocates negotiation, he has little left to prove as a soldier who fought the Russians.
…
He served in a C.I.A.-trained unit in Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency whose head was assassinated in a Russian car bombing in Kyiv. In 2016, a machine gun bullet shattered Mr. Budanov’s elbow. He was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland for months, as his arm was rebuilt. After the 2022 all-out Russian invasion, he helped mastermind some of Ukraine’s most audacious counterattacks.Mr. Budanov still wears a military-style buzz cut and is known for piercing stares with his dark eyes. In an office adorned with a Christian icon painted on the ceramic plate of an armored vest, he pulled back the curtain a bit on the art of negotiating with mortal enemies.
Bodanov is portrait as one who could lead Ukraine towards peace with Russia (under U.S. conditions):
One of the main reasons Mr. Budanov took the job as chief of staff this past January, he said, was the opportunity to lead negotiations.
By that time, Mr. Witkoff and Russian and Ukrainian negotiators had whittled a 20-point peace plan to two key unresolved points: ..
…
In talks in Abu Dhabi, Mr. Budanov tried to set a new tone, he said.He said he told the Russian delegation that it should set a goal, like designing compromises for postwar governance in the Donbas, and work toward it.
By February, he said, potential ideas included handing the area over to private military contractors, allowing Mr. Trump’s Board of Peace to rule it, or forming joint Ukrainian and Russian civilian administrations.
That nonsense proposal, which Budanov argued, must have come from the White House amateurs.
The shootout in Kiev was thus much more than a mafia discussion about business.
It was part of a fight over who will control Ukraine’s foreign policy. The MI6 and the CIA have each their own preferences.
But what is really interesting is that Moscow, it seems, has taken an active position in this:
Yaroslav Trofimov @yarotrof – 13:30 UTC · Sep 4, 2026
A Russian jet-drone (basically a cruise missile) just flew into the office of the head of Ukraine’s intelligence service SBU, Poklad, in the heart of Kyiv. He wasn’t killed but Zelensky has ordered a mirror retaliation whenever possible. …
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– US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner plan to travel to Kiev and Moscow soon, a source told TASS.
– In early September, a source told the agency that Witkoff and Kushner were intensifying their mediation efforts on Ukraine.
– Telephone contacts with the Ukrainian side have already been held, according to the source.
– Vladimir Zelensky said the day before that tentative dates for Witkoff and Kushner’s visit to Kiev had already been set.
– The visit could take place in the near future, he noted.
Witkoff and Kushner should interpret the ‘Russian’ drone attack against the SBU headquarter as a welcoming gesture.