Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - International Service: Krylo Budanov, head of the main intelligence department of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, said that it is impossible to even imagine the continuation of the war without announcing the mobilization of new forces. "
Volodymyr Zelenskyi, the president of Ukraine, has also announced that the army leaders want to mobilize 400,000 to 500,000 troops to fill the void of the soldiers who were killed or injured in the war, and to give the soldiers who have been in intense battles a chance to rest.
In an interview with the Financial Times newspaper, Budanov said that North Korea is currently Russia's most important arms supporter, claiming that Russia has had problems in supplying the ammunition and weapons it needs in the war.
He said: They (North Korea) sent a significant amount of artillery ammunition (to Russia). This has made Russia breathe a little. Without these contributions, the situation would have been disastrous.
In a strange statement, the Ukrainian official also denied the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder and commander of the Russian private military group Wagner, and said that Wagner is still active.
Last year, a private jet owned by Yevgeny Prigogine crashed, killing 10 people, including Prigogine himself. This incident occurred after Prigozhin launched an armed but short-lived rebellion against the Kremlin in June of last year; The rebellion ended with the mediation of Minsk and Wagner's troops were transferred to Belarus.
Budanov said: Wagner exists. As for Prigogine, I cannot draw such simple conclusions. I am not saying that he is dead or not. My point is that there is not a single proof of his death.
On the other hand, this Ukrainian official, continuing his surprising statements, once again fueled the previous claims about the illness of Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, and his use of multiple substitutes. In response to the Financial Times reporter's request to provide evidence about his claim, he said that the analysts under his command are monitoring Putin's face; From "the lobe of the ear to the distance between the eyebrows."
Budanov claimed that the President of Russia is using a surrogate and stated: This task (checking the face in the images) is not so difficult. You can easily do it yourself.
According to Isna, it is likely that the organization under Budanov's command is behind Ukraine's attacks on Russian territory and Moscow-controlled areas in Ukraine. But Kiev does not directly confirm this issue. Budanov, whose alleged attacks have sometimes been condemned even by Western supporters of Ukraine, said about his policy in the new year: "We don't expect a big change." Whatever we have done till today, we will do it again.
He refused to comment and evaluate the current operations in Ukraine and referred the Financial Times reporter to the Chief of the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; But he said that a difficult year is ahead of Kiev.
Stating that Ukraine is not in a catastrophic situation, this Ukrainian official clarified that it would not be correct to say that "everything is fine."
At the end of the interview, he refused to comment on the progress of the war in the new year and said: I hope that our successes will be more than theirs (the Russians).