Built to order Zelensky made Kyrylo Budanov a political force — and now no one in the president’s circle is sure what he’ll do with it

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky began 2026 with a new chief of staff and, sources close to his office tell Meduza, a quiet acknowledgment that he may not run for reelection. Kyrylo Budanov — who replaced Andriy Yermak as presidential chief of staff in January — may prove a useful political asset when elections return, but the former military intelligence chief is unpredictable, and no one in the president’s circle is sure what they built. A Meduza investigation by Elizaveta Antonova, published earlier this month, traces how Zelensky’s team spent the past year raising Budanov’s profile and deepening his role in government.

How Budanov was built

The Budanov project began as Andriy Yermak’s response to Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The former commander-in-chief, whom Zelensky sidelined in 2024 by appointing him Ukraine’s ambassador to Britain, had become a political problem. By 2023, Zaluzhnyi was pulling away from Zelensky in hypothetical polling. The general had become, for many Ukrainians, the face of resistance, eclipsing the president himself. Sources who spoke to Meduza say Yermak concluded that the administration needed to find another, more malleable individual to satisfy the public appetite for military figures in senior government positions.

Budanov — young, but already four years into leading Ukrainian military intelligence — fit the bill. He was already drawing attention — journalists called him the most public intelligence chief in Ukrainian history — and he had credibility as an officer decorated for operations behind enemy lines. He and his wife survived multiple assassination attempts, which he declined to discuss publicly. Yermak’s plan was to make Budanov visible and keep him loyal — a pet soldier for the president.

What Yermak miscalculated was that Budanov had his own plans and ambitions. By mid-2024, Budanov’s numbers were climbing and, according to one Meduza source, people in his orbit were already working toward an independent political project. Yermak reportedly began undercutting Budanov in private conversations with Zelensky. Ukrainian media predicted Budanov’s dismissal that fall, but it was Yermak whose tenure ended in November 2025 amid a corruption scandal that swept through his inner circle.

The appointment and what followed

Zelensky’s decision to appoint Budanov followed a two-part logic, a source familiar with the decision tells Meduza: draw him into a shared “tent” before any elections, and use his presence in the administration to undermine Zaluzhnyi’s public position.

Budanov delegates where Yermak micromanaged, and three months in, sources say the office runs better for it. Officials are largely still where they were before Yermak’s ouster — Zelensky controls senior appointments, and his new chief of staff hasn’t pushed for changes. Budanov, per a source who knows him, has been told to stay out of media, parliamentary politics, and internal intrigue. He is listening, asking questions, and learning the civilian machinery.

Sources close to the president’s office say doubts remain about Budanov’s loyalty to Zelensky. Moving him to the administration pulled him away from his base in military intelligence, but no one is sure how far his ambitions run without Zelensky’s backing.

By the numbers

The Zelensky camp commissioned private polling and got an uncomfortable answer: Budanov beats Zelensky head-to-head, a source familiar with the results tells Meduza — and loses to Zaluzhnyi, but by a smaller margin than Zelensky does.

Public surveys tell a similar story. A January Ipsos survey put Zaluzhnyi at 23 percent, Zelensky at 20, and Budanov at 7. By mid-March, a Socis poll had Zelensky at 22.6 percent, Zaluzhnyi at 19.3, and Budanov at 10.5 — with a Budanov-aligned party drawing 15 percent in parliamentary polling, against 11.5 percent for Zelensky’s Servant of the People.

Budanov is the only figure in these matchups whose numbers are improving.

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Two scenarios

While Zelensky’s team runs the numbers, nothing is settled — everything could “change a hundred times before any election,” one source says — but two scenarios are in play.

In the first, Zelensky steps aside and backs Budanov for president — a political alliance in which Budanov runs as what one source calls Zelensky’s “guarantor” of his personal security. In the second, Zelensky runs and Budanov leads the party list for a Zelensky-aligned parliamentary bloc, with a coalition agreement potentially signed before the results are known.

Political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko is skeptical that a durable alliance is in the cards. His read: Budanov took the job as chief of staff, which means he operates under Zelensky — de jure and de facto, as Fesenko puts it. Budanov runs for president only if he and Zelensky fall out. He leads the party list if their partnership holds.

Still, sources close to the administration have their doubts. “He set such goals even at the military intelligence service,” one says of Budanov’s presidential ambitions. Fesenko notes that Budanov’s current numbers aren’t enough to cost Zaluzhnyi a spot in a runoff. “The main danger for Zelensky is Zaluzhnyi in the second round,” Fesenko tells Meduza.

Outlook

No one Meduza spoke to believes elections will return to Ukraine in the next two years. The ceasefire-plus-referendum scenario that animated Zelensky’s team last winter collapsed when Trump turned his attention to Iran; Washington’s midterm cycle starts this spring, and Ukrainian sources expect no serious U.S. pressure on Russia before the 2028 presidential race. Zelensky has reportedly told advisers to plan for a scenario in which elections are years away.

All of which means the arrangements are loose and the timeline is long. Watch whether Budanov begins to show any public distance from the president — interviews, positioning, anything that signals independent movement. Watch whether organizations such as the “Zakhyst Derzhavy” veterans’ network, which sources say was built around Budanov (Meduza could not independently verify the connection), begin to take shape as a campaign operation. And watch Zaluzhnyi, who has not announced anything, but whom three sources close to the presidential administration say will run.

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