The Forum of Support for Russian Volunteers Fighting for the Independence of Ukraine and the Freedom of Russia took place in Kyiv. Among others, the head of Ukrainian intelligence, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, spoke there. The forum deserves a separate article, but we are bringing you Budanov’s speech in full now:

Distinguished forum participants!

Russian volunteer formations are units of Russians that act in cooperation with us, but autonomously.

I am glad to see representatives of the majority of Russian volunteer formations at the Forum: the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Siberian Battalion. In the foreseeable future, the number of opposition organizations will increase, because Russia is beginning to wake up.

In cooperation with opposition politicians, you are leading a fair fight for a new Russia that will be liberated from the darkness of totalitarianism and self-isolation into which all Russians have been cast by Putin’s fascist regime.

A regime of archaism, decay, and senile attitudes created by a pathologically disturbed personality.

The limited military operation in the Belgorod and Kursk regions is merely the beginning of the journey in the struggle for your native land.

Its goal was to draw the reserves of Putin’s army away from the Ukrainian front, to discredit the electoral process in the Russian Federation—which many organizations consider illegitimate—to call on the world community not to recognize Putin as the legitimate president of the Russian Federation, and also to awaken the consciousness of Russians.

During this military operation, a number of border settlements came under control, and strikes are carried out exclusively on the military infrastructure of Putin’s troops.

The most important question: what happened between March 13 and 18 in the Belgorod and Kursk regions?

Citizens of the Russian Federation decided to liberate their country from the old man and his henchmen—an old man who has usurped power, illegally changed the constitution, and lives with his cronies in an alternative reality. The war against Putin’s regime is a legal right of citizens, the right to demand justice and better living conditions for the entire Russian Federation, not just for the “Ozero Cooperative”.

Elections in Russia have been illegitimate from the very beginning. Putin has repeatedly violated the constitution, thereby opening Pandora’s box. As always, the Kremlin distorts the facts. This is a consequence of Putin’s own crimes, his aggression against Ukraine and other countries, and crimes against his own people.

Massive “election riots” have begun in the Russian Federation. Nowhere in the world, in the entire history of elections, have there been so many destroyed and damaged ballot boxes. Any result announced by the Russian Central Election Commission will be fake because the elections did not take place—and not only in the border regions. A large number of polling stations will not be able to count ballots because there are Russian activists who understand the vileness of these elections and are invalidating the ballots. In other words, it is already clear at this point that the election results, at the very least, cannot be calculated.

Putin understands that in the eyes of world leaders, especially China, he is becoming an unstable ruler who cannot ensure order during elections in his own country. He appears as a weakling before his people and elites. And weakness is what he fears most.

What is happening now in the Russian Federation weakens the regime in general and Putin personally. We must take advantage of this weakness and turn it into another weapon.

Source: Telegram of Ukrainian Intelligence, Telegraph