The ex-deputy head of the SBU, Lieutenant General Andriy Kozhemyakin, who has been a deputy for many years "as a citizen" (in the "Batkivshchyna" faction), is wearing a uniform again. Now he is the deputy commander of the volunteer formation of the territorial community of Kyiv "Mriya" of the 241st Brigade of Terrodefense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. About how enemy agents were caught in Kyiv in the first days of the war and what kind of tribe these scoundrels turned out to be, how Ukraine can surprise the Russians during a counteroffensive, and what will happen if the Russian dictator Putin tries to press the "nuclear button" — in an exclusive interview "Telegraph".
Was the SBU preparing for war?!
— Any modern war is not only a battlefield where rockets fly or tanks drive. This is also a war of special services that is invisible to the naked eye. All the more so since the Russian special services began "surrounding" our territory long before the large-scale invasion. What is your impression - in this theater of invisible war, who is currently winning and who is losing?
— I would put the question differently: was the SBU and all other special services and intelligence agencies of the country ready for the start of a full-scale aggression? My answer is no, they were not ready. This is evidenced by the events that took place in a number of regional divisions of the SBU: in Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv regions, and especially in Kherson region. The actions of the leaders of these regional divisions, as well as the Crimean SBU Department, have yet to be evaluated, their turn will come.
Today, you know that we have detained and arrested up to a dozen former employees of the SBU, including the "entire deputy" head of the Security Service, Mr. Kulinych. Next - Mr. Naumov - he fled abroad with a lot of money, he is not just a traitor, but a traitor-extortionist and traitor-bribery. And who is Naumov? This is the former head of the Department of Homeland Security. This is the heart of the Security Service, which should bring order to it, identify moles, traitors, and corrupt people.
Here's how the SBU was prepared before the start of the war. The heads of the aforementioned departments at the beginning of the invasion did not fulfill their tasks, which are in the orders of the Security Service of Ukraine and in the Constitution. Bakanov could not be found in Kyiv, he was not here - that's 100%. When the war begins, each SBU employee must take out a special package from the safe, which says what he should do during the war. And the head of the SBU department must do the following: create a military unit from the department and this department becomes the defense headquarters. He must ensure interaction between his unit and the Armed Forces, with territorial defense, etc. How did it turn out? Employees of the SBU, who were more patriotic and more seriously trained, simply joined the Terrodefense, and defended our land from the Terrodefense, and not as part of specially trained SBU units.
This is a complete failure. Here, of course, the question is not only to the SBU, there are questions to all others as well.
But when the services did not know what to do, the Ukrainian people did everything themselves. He united, took up arms, for which some veterans of territorial defense already wanted to be prosecuted, and defended the country. Now it turns out that somewhere someone got the weapon allegedly illegally. But then, in the first days, no one asked anything: weapons were distributed in Obolon, weapons were distributed in the city center, I personally received the weapon on February 24 in the yard of the Department of Internal Affairs of the city of Kyiv - I went and took a machine gun.
Then, beginning in March, the work of military counter-intelligence to identify enemy agents already began. The most important problem in Kyiv and in the regions was those who pointed at the targets. However, it was not so difficult for the counter-intelligence agents to do this, because the entire Ukrainian people became our agent apparatus - in the good sense of the word. Patriotic. He identified those people who were proofreaders, who went around taking pictures of something, who called somewhere, or who went in the wrong place at night, and quickly informed our relevant structures. With the forces of our unit, we detained 15 saboteurs - correctional officers and other assistants of the enemy.
- Who were these people - are they our citizens?!
— Yes, these are our citizens who sold the country for money. Out of 15 people there, only two were ideologically motivated, the so-called "wool". Almost all of them come from the east of Ukraine. That is, immigrants who moved to Kyiv in 2014. They were found here and made proposals - before the war, the sabotage work of the Russian GRU and FSB was very active. They even noticed apartments in the city center - which they were going to seize first of all. The occupiers already had lists of whom they were going to evict: the first circle, the second circle; as well as the plans where to make the concentration camps - in Brovary, in Vasylkiv - they had everything drawn up. And of course they had lists of people to exterminate. Later, I saw this information in the SBU. For example, there was a list of people's deputies - about 200 were to be destroyed.
— 200 people's deputies! Oho!
- So. At the same time, a hundred people's deputies are the opposite - infiltration and re-recruitment. For example, MPs from OPZZH were supposed to help in the destruction of their colleagues. Or become a "repository" of candidates for leadership of some state structures.
- And how did they plan to destroy - just come and shoot?
— And how did they destroy people in Buch, in Irpen, and in other similar places?! Take everyone out and shoot them! I want to say about myself: I was on those lists, I and my family were to be destroyed. Taken to the designated place...
- To the forest?
- I don't know whether to go to the forest or not, they were planning camps there. They marked where filtering or destruction was to be done. What they did in Buch and Irpen, they were going to do in Kyiv. And when they did not reach Kyiv, they began to train and work out in Buch, Irpen, Moschun... If they had reached Kyiv in three days, they would have done it here - they would have grabbed people, hands by the head, as we saw in the video , would be put in cars and taken away for destruction. Because their "denazification" meant removing, shooting such people who are not re-educated. Nationalistic minded.
How was this list prepared? In particular, all of us who voted for recognizing Russia as an aggressor state in 2018 — 268 people's deputies — got there.
Regarding the saboteurs, I will say that in the first days in Kyiv, a dozen or a half representatives of a well-known delivery company were detained. They rode mopeds and bicycles and collected information. Then - in the first days of the war, there was no one in the city, there were very few cars, and they could drive, no one touched them. They were moving around, transmitting information - whether there was a roadblock somewhere near the bridge, whether equipment had gone somewhere, etc. But in the end they were exposed, and when asked why they agreed to it, they answered - they gave us money.
— And what about those saboteurs now? Are they sitting?
- Of course, they are all sitting, and there are a lot of them.
— And whose failure was it - the unpreparedness of the special services?
— This is a failure of the approach to the system of special services in Ukraine. And it happened a long time ago, it was the handiwork of President Yanukovych - when he put people there who were actually Russian citizens - Yakymenko, etc. They came specifically to give the enemy all our capabilities, all our special services weapons. And what are the weapons of special services? This is not a gun, not a machine gun.
— Information?
— Agency. The agency and the pen - as I was taught at the KGB school. A pen to write down what the agent told you - that's the whole weapon.
Then they surrendered our entire agency to the enemy. Then, in 2014, when the pro-Ukrainian forces returned to power, unfortunately, we did not purge the traitors, there was no time - the war began, the seizure of Crimea... And they disguised themselves, quieted down. And then, in a year or six months, they began to prepare for a full-scale invasion. We already know how the curators from Moscow managed even the deputy heads of the Security Service of Ukraine - so that they would appoint the people they needed to these or other positions. It was on this topic that there was a conversation between FSB curator Sivkovich and Deputy Head of the SBU Kulinich, which will be published on Telegram channels.
They put their people in charge of SBU departments in the border regions, as well as in the central apparatus, where all the information flows. And this means that everything that the SBU knew, the FSB also knew. That's all the preparation for war. And Mr. Bakanov came to manage the Service - a person who had nothing to do with the special services at all, that is, he did not know this craft at all.
About Malyuk, Kryvonos and Chervinsky
- Who is responsible for this?
- Open the Constitution. It is clearly written there, who has what authority and whose responsibility is where. The SBU, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Ministry of Defense - to whom do they directly report? Hence the responsibility.
If you appoint, submit this candidate to the Verkhovna Rada, you are responsible for that person. Recently, for example, when the president nominated Mr. Malyuk, the current head of the Security Service of Ukraine, I spoke on this issue in the parliament - from the faction. And he said that today our faction will vote for Malyuk Vasyl Vasyliovych, because we all believe that the Security Service should be headed by a professional. And since I worked together with this person: when I was the head of the Main Department of K, he was one of the employees there, so I know that this person knows how to work and knows that such a craft is operational.
— Did the president somehow understand that professionals should be appointed to key positions this year?
- I think so. The president, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, has taken the right steps related to his status and appointment as president. He stayed with us here in Kyiv.
- Well, there was a lot of talk about it...
- In any case, the fact that he remained when they walked here on the empty streets of Kyiv with assault rifles is a big plus. Because when the country's leader is in place, it disciplines people a little, encourages them. And then he began to listen to the military, those who recommend the right things in security matters. Plus, God sent us a military leader - Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny and all those who work with him, so God bless them with health. The president is being teased now - they say, what are they (military — Red.) everyone there is so independent - and he stands his ground and gives them the opportunity to work.
— Can there be Russian agents in the entourage of the president?
— There were many scandals and revelations about this even before the full-scale invasion. They did not end in anything, but led to the fact that the authorities were losing their authority. And these scandals did not go anywhere, they only froze - the war froze them. But the war will pass, and believe me, Ukrainian soldiers and commanders, who are now shedding their blood for the country, will not allow these scandals to be brought to an end. So I'm an optimist. I believe that the sooner the war ends, the sooner we will finish off everyone who is with us today, but repainted.
— And such facts as criminal cases against General Serhiy Kryvonos? And recently the intelligence officer Roman Chervinsky was "closed" for 60 days - what is this?
— As for General Kryvonos, I made a statement in the Verkhovna Rada - immediately after the pressure on him began. I said it's a bad trend - when law enforcement doesn't know what to do. They started this shadow war with those who took up arms and went to defend the Motherland in the early days. General Kryvonos did everything clearly as a military man - he came to the place that he considered to be the most dangerous from the point of view of possible capture by the enemy - the airport "Kyiv" (Zhulyany). I will say more that in March-April I just drove through these posts and stopped, chatted, saw how his team was working well, all instructions and commands were clearly given. Therefore, I believe that he performed everything legally, all his actions were correct. At most, he received a sanction for this from the commander-in-chief: to ensure the protection of the object - the airport "Kyiv" (Zhulyany), which was strategically important for Kyiv, so that neither rotorcraft, nor airplanes, nor enemy landing forces would land there. Which he did.
Therefore, when they say that the war will write off everything, I always specify that the war must write off everything correctly! In this case, I think he is right.
Regarding Mr. Chervinsky, I know Roman personally. I once took him to my unit. He worked first as an operative under my supervision, then as a senior operative. I never had any complaints against him. He was a very executive and promising employee of the Main Directorate of K. After I left the Service in 2006 and went into politics, I did not meet him. Everything else I watch on screens and read in Telegram channels or on the Internet. I don't have any exclusive information about what happened to him, so I don't want to comment on anything.
Our offensive may have already begun
— Both in Ukrainian and foreign media, the main topic of discussion right now is our future counteroffensive. Do you think that with such total attention to this event, our command will be able to keep the direction and time a secret?
— The offensive is expected not only by us, but also by all those who are helping us today. And these are more than 50 countries collected by Ramstein. The intelligence community, including the American one, also helps. And all of them, of course, are waiting for when the Armed Forces of Ukraine will strike this blow, which is called a counteroffensive. That is, for them, the event should be loud even now. So that they could see her.
But this event can happen according to another scenario, it can happen gradually. That is, our offensive could have already started, it could go according to some completely unexpected plan, in the wrong area, in the wrong direction, where they are counting.
What I want to say is: what is the discussion and such disclosure of this expectation - it gives a plus on the one hand, and a minus on the other. But I think there are more advantages. Why? Because, as one military commentator rightly said, it's like fog. The fog goes, settles, and no one sees anything. That is, allegedly, they say that there will be an offensive here, and there, but no one knows for sure.
And what's the downside - while the talks are going on, the enemy can try to get real information about the upcoming offensive. Not here, in Ukraine, but rather, abroad - among those who know about it, who are allowed to do so. But I hope that only a very, very limited number of people know about it.
Regarding the attack itself. You know, I'm a little oriented in terms of training, weapons - here, by the way, in the premises of the "Dream" battalion, we have the only training class in Kyiv with simulators of shooting with NLAW, "Stinger" and RPK. Well, knowing this situation, I will say that both technically and morally - everyone is ready. The motivation of the fighters is crazy. Now we are waiting for you know what? For the weather. We need wind and sun to remove moisture from the earth. So, if there is weather, then the counterattack will have effective consequences. And I support the idea of American General Ben Hodges, a great friend of our country, who says that first we need to launch an offensive in the area closer to Crimea, destroy the bridge, and then it will be a very powerful move. That's exactly what I would do.
— This will also be a political blow to Putin in Russia itself.
— Not only a political blow to Putin, it will be a blow to the enemy's morale and fighting condition. When they got used to Crimea being their rear, where they are fed and supplied with ammunition, and then suddenly they return, and the enemy is behind them - it is always scary. Even in a street situation: when you are standing in front of the enemy is one thing. And when he is also behind, it is three times more terrible.
Putin's entourage is already waiting to destroy him
— Isn't there a danger that crazy Putin will "break free" and order nuclear weapons to be used?
— I think that such an order from his side will be a signal to those people who today are hatching plans to remove him.
There is such a concept as passive protection. What it is? Passive security during presidential security measures, for example, is a turnstile. Or just a standing policeman or a person with a bandage. That is, a person who intends to do something, a terrorist, approaching this passive guard, will already think about whether something should be done or not. And when he violates passive security - steps through the turnstile, for example - this is a signal for those on guard. Then they twist him, kill him.
It will be the same in this situation. If Putin wants to give an appropriate order or sign a document - and there is a whole procedure, then for certain people in his circle this will be a limit, a red tape. I have no doubt that there are already people near him who have come into contact with the special services of the United States and other NATO countries. And then an instant special operation will be carried out - to destroy it.
That is, today Putin lives only because he did not do this. And when he commits a violation of passive protection, it will be a signal for those who are already waiting for it.
In the end, no one canceled - after such a decision of his, if it is signaled - the possibility of NATO and the Americans to physically destroy Putin at his location. Only he will sign, and the drone whose missile will penetrate the bunker will immediately arrive.
