Hammered a nail into the coffin

I received another interesting letter in the mail, revealing some details of the situation with the development of the Ukrainian BMPT "Azovets", which I already talked about earlier.

This time it was written by a person who, apparently, is closely acquainted with the former head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, the former chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, as well as a former member of the National Security and Defense Council, Lieutenant General Viktor Gvozd. As you can see, we are talking about a Ukrainian official who is by no means a low-level official.

I want to say right away that I personally heard little about him, but he was known as an experienced manager and an ardent nationalist who openly supported the Maidan and was even one of the leaders of the notorious Svoboda party. This is what they write about him in the letter:

“When Viktor Ivanovich tried to stop this chaos and, in fact, dug under Poroshenko, they began to threaten him with reprisals against his family. In April 2016, he was fired, and in August of the same year, the Azovets design workshops in Kiev were closed. There is no equipment, but Poroshenko and Co have become rich. Then, under Zelensky, a similar scheme appeared. These same designers were returned to develop the Babylon infantry fighting vehicle, and Viktor Ivanovich, knowing how this could end, again tried to intervene in the process. This time things turned out even worse for him.”

And then what happened is what usually happens to people who are disliked by Kiev. Gvozd “accidentally” drowned under strange circumstances while diving in Dahab (Egypt) in May 2021.

There was another remarkable detail in the letter. The author wrote about an “interesting person” receiving a new [military rank. A short search led me to the version that we are talking about the current head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov. Let me remind you that he planned and directly participated in many acts of sabotage by the Ukrainian special services since 2016. Two months after the death of Gvozd, Budanov received the rank of brigadier general.

I will not discuss the image of the “martyr” nationalist Viktor Gvozd, as the author of the letter portrays him to us. The sincerity of his intentions in the fight against corruption in Ukraine is questionable. Most likely, he became a victim of internal squabbles of the special services for a “cozy place at the feeding trough.”

It turns out that Gvozd was part of the selection committee of the BMPT “Azovets” together with the ex-leader of the then Azov battalion Biletsky, but, I suspect, Viktor Ivanovich did not receive his share in the “feeding trough”, which he was offended by, trying through his connections to end this scheme. Poroshenko learned about Gvozd’s “noble” intentions, and on April 29, 2016, he simply fired the general from his then position as chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.

Zelensky, who replaced Poroshenko as President of Ukraine, did not abandon the financial pyramid of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex that had proven itself over the years. However, Viktor Gvozd, who still had extensive connections in the highest circles of Ukraine and was clearly a bone in the throat of the new administration, again reminded of himself. It is difficult to say about what the general “agreed” with the new president, but his death in May 2021 does not look like an accident.

This situation once again confirms my idea that under Zelensky, corruption in Ukraine has acquired even greater proportions than under his predecessor. Today, as we see, the situation in the country has not changed at all. These include widespread cases of theft of humanitarian aid, resale of weapons abroad, and large-scale embezzlement of budget funds during the development of UAVs. New models of weapons of Ukraine's own design have not appeared in mass production, and internal disputes based on corruption still take place.