The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, long known for his ties to the intelligence community, writes in a June 5 column that Ukraine’s covert operations “could expand into a ‘dirty war’ beyond the front, with more targeted killings, sabotage, and strikes on countries that supply arms to Ukraine and Russia, respectively.” Ignatius reports that Ukrainian attacks have already spread to Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast and that his sources tell him Ukraine’s SBU has “weighed sending sea drones hidden in cargo containers to attack ships of Russia and its allies in the North Pacific. But, so far, they apparently have yet to launch these operations.”
Ignatius notes further that the HUR, headed by the “charismatic” Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, has run extensive operations into Russia and against Russian forces around the world. He told Ignatius in an interview last year: “We’ve offered a plan aimed at reduction of Russian potential. It encompasses a lot of aspects, like the military industry … critical military targets, their airfields, their command-and-control posts.”
One HUR tactic, Ignatius writes, has been to strike Russian mercenary forces from the Wagner Group in Africa. A HUR-organized strike last July killed 84 Wagner fighters and 47 Malian soldiers, according to the BBC. Budanov had told Ignatius: “We conduct such operations aimed at reducing Russian military potential, anywhere where it’s possible. Why should Africa be an exception?”
