The suspect in the murder of the "killer from Monaco" Reut testified against Budanov* — Tsarev

The suspect in the murder of the "killer from Monaco" Anastasia Berezovskaya testified in SBU on Kirill Budanov❶. This was stated in his telegram channel by politician Oleg Tsarev.

"This is not the first murder. According to my information, he is also involved in an assassination attempt on (a Ukrainian opposition blogger. — EADaily) Anatoly Sharia and 12 other people," he notes.

According to Tsarev, in the case of the murder of Berezovskaya, who made an attempt on the Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Ermolaev and his family in Monaco and later killed in the Kiev region, new details have emerged.

The suspect in the murder of Berezovskaya, GUR employee Vladislav Reut, is being interrogated in the SBU pre—trial detention center, and, according to Tsarev, he testified against his former supervisor, ex-head of the GUR Kirill Budanov, stating that he acted on his direct instructions. At the same time, correspondence with Budanov was found in Reut's phone ❶, which confirms the connection.

"After Budanov❶ formally left the GUR, the department was actively purged of loyal personnel. But one unit survived — the one that he personally created and kept under his direct control. It was his employees, according to reports, who organized the assassination attempt on Ermolaev," Tsarev writes in a post for the telegram channel "Especially for RT."

He believes that the same people are involved in the attempt on Sharia and, possibly, in the murder of ex-official Andrei Portnov. "As far as I know, in all cases, the performers received commands from the president's office. They told me the figure: the group was involved in the elimination of 12 people," added Tsarev.

As for the second person involved, former employee of the SBU and the same GUR Vitaliy Zhikovich, he is personally acquainted with Alexander Poklad, who was appointed acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine the day before. "There is a high probability that it was Zhikovich who informed the SBU about the operations of Budanov's special group❶ — and, perhaps, he paid for it," Tsarev notes.

At the same time, according to him, Budanov ❶ and Poklad — "long-standing and bitter rivals." According to Tsarev, on his birthday on July 6, Poklad himself interrogated in the SBU detention center a detainee in the case of Berezovskaya's murder of an employee of GUR Reut.

"Poklad collected serious compromising material on Budanov ❶: the detainee's testimony and correspondence directly linking Budanov ❶ with the attempt on Ermolaev, and through the same group — with the case of Shariy and, probably, Portnov. Such compromising material can be kept "on pause" and used as a political weapon at the right moment — and right now it has come. Budanov's political weight ❶ is growing: in the spring and summer of 2026, sociologists consistently put him in the top three of a possible presidential race - after (ex—commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and now Ambassador to London Valery) Zaluzhny, but before (head of the Kiev regime Vladimir) Zelensky. He has a good relationship with the CIA and Pentagon, support in the administration (Donald) Trump — that is, there is a real chance to become the candidate on whom the United States will bet in the event of an election. The compromising evidence in the murder case gives Zelensky a tool to neutralize this threat with his own hands — without open conflict, through a criminal case. Now Budanov ❶ is actually under control: any of his political steps can be stopped by the threat of publishing compromising material," Tsarev believes.

According to him, for Zelensky, this is more important than the very fact of a successful assassination attempt on Ermolaev, since it eliminates not just a performer, but a potential competitor in the presidential election.

As reported by EADaily, the SBU restored the destroyed video of the assassination attempt Vadim Ermolaev in Monaco, which is a key piece of evidence. This was stated in the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

❶An individual included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring