The owl hunts at dusk: Ukraine’s GUR in the Russia-Ukraine war
Major General Ilya Pavlenko, former deputy head of GUR
The high-profile special operations of Ukrainian military intelligence under the leadership of Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
From the first days of the full-scale invasion, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR) faced new unprecedented challenges that affected the fundamental transformation of Ukraine and the course of global security, political, and economic processes. Reforms in the leading intelligence service of Ukraine began, in fact, on the fly. Starting in 2022, the range and geography of GUR activities significantly expanded. Ukrainian intelligence officers knew their enemy well and had been fighting him since 2014, when the Russians annexed Crimea and captured part of the Ukrainian Donbas. The experience of GUR during the Russia’s full-scaled invasion is being actively studied by world analysts and specialists from many intelligence services.
Invasion
On the very first night of the full-scale invasion, one of the first tasks of GUR active operations units was the defense of Kyiv. Realizing that the loss of the Ukrainian capital would lead to the collapse of the front and the demoralization of society, Budanov sent special forces to defend the airfield in Hostomel, which the enemy planned to capture in order to land transport planes with troops and equipment. The best military vanguard of the occupiers clashed with professional, motivated, well-armed GUR units.
At the same time, active attacks were carried out on the enemy’s supply chains, especially on stretched supply lines.
In parallel, under the leadership of Budanov, a network of resistance movements was created - partisan detachments in the regions from the local population, the activities of which were coordinated by the main headquarters of Ukrainian military intelligence. There was also a need to expand the specialization and number of units of active operations of the highest complexity - this is how the first new units of GUR appeared: Kraken, Shaman and Artan. Volunteers from many countries of the world arrived in the ranks of GUR’s International Legion.
GUR units liberated Bucha, Irpin, Moshchun, Vorzel, other cities and villages of the Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Chernihiv regions.
A separate page was the operation to support the several thousand-strong garrison of Mariupol, Donetsk region, which was surrounded on the territory of the Azovstal plant. Helicopters delivered ammunition, medicines, food to the garrison, and on their way back evacuated the wounded and the bodies of the dead defenders. Seven flights were made, 16 military helicopters were used, which bypassed the deep-echelon defense of the occupiers, saturated with air defense means.
In the battles for the Kharkiv region and during the Kharkiv counteroffensive operation in September 2022, the fighters of GUR Kraken regiment distinguished themselves. GUR special forces also participated in defensive battles for Severodonetsk, Soledar, Bakhmut, Chasiv Yar and other cities and towns of Ukraine.
On January 24, 2023, GUR fighters conducted a successful reconnaissance raid in the area of Novaya Kakhovka, Kherson region, crossing the Dnipro on motor boats. The enemy perceived this as an attempt to break through, pulled up significant reserves, but Ukrainian special forces inflicted significant losses on the enemy, destroyed the command post, captured a prisoner and returned to the right bank of the Dnipro.
In August 2023, the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine began an operation to cross the Dnipro in its lower reaches and create a bridgehead on the left bank. As a result, a bridgehead was created near the villages of Krynki and Kozachi Lageri in the Kherson region, which was held until the summer of 2024, forcing the enemy to concentrate significant forces and resources there. An important role in this operation was played by the fighters of GUR special unit Shaman. In August-September 2023, GUR units made at least three attempts to cross the Dnipro in the Enerhodar region of Zaporizhia region in order to create a bridgehead for the liberation of the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). Unfortunately, they did not succeed, but the enemy was forced to maintain significant forces there and then did not dare to connect the Zaporizhia NPP to its energy system.
From defense to offense: the battle for the Black Sea
From the first hours of the full-scale invasion, the Russian Black Sea Fleet, using its numerical and fire superiority, tried to establish control over the Black Sea and land troops on the coast near Odesa, but suffered a complete fiasco. As a result, thanks to the work of GUR special forces and small Ukrainian unmanned Magura vessels, Russia lost control over the Black Sea.
To protect trade sea routes and secure the northwestern coast of the Black Sea from enemy presence, Budanov set a priority - to clear the water area from the Russian presence.
The story of the return of Ukrainian control over the Black Sea began with the deoccupation of Zmiiny Island in early July 2022, on which GUR and SSO special forces landed.
An important stage in securing the Black Sea trade routes was the return to Ukrainian control of the gas drilling platforms on the Black Sea shelf between Zmiiny Island and the western coast of Crimea, captured by the Russians in March 2014, the so-called Boiko Tower. In early September 2023, Artan reconnaissance units conducted an operation and regained control over the Petro Godovanets and Ukraine drilling platforms, as well as the Tavrida and Syvash jack-up rigs.
The first target of GUR on May 24, 2023 was the Russian reconnaissance ship Ivan Khurs, which was successfully attacked by three Magura V5 drones 140 km northeast of the Bosphorus Strait. On February 1, 2024, six Magura V5 drones attacked the Russian missile boat Ivanovets, which sank, killing all its crew members. Several landing craft were also destroyed near Chornomorskoye. On February 14, 2024, the large landing ship Caesar Kunikov was sunk near Alupka.
The most complex naval operation of GUR was the destruction of the most modern patrol ship of the occupiers Sergei Kotov. This ship was hit twice by Magura drones before being sunk. Special forces of GUR detachment Group 13 destroyed many more enemy surface targets with the help of Magura V5 drones. Currently, the Magura naval strike drone is the only drone in the world to sink a warship.
But the creativity of GUR special forces engineers did not stop there: on the last day of 2024, the soldiers of Group 13 for the first time in history hit an air target using a Magura V5 equipped with missile weapons. Near Cape Tarkhankut of the temporarily occupied Crimea, two Russian Mi-8 helicopters were shot down by R-73 Sea Dragon missiles launched from the Magura V5. And in early May 2025, near the Russian port of Novorossiysk, the soldiers of Group 13 from the platform of the latest Ukrainian development Magura V7 shot down two Russian multi-role Su-30 Flanker aircraft with AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles.
With a set of these successful operations, GUR operators achieved their strategic goal - they returned free logistics to Ukraine through the Black Sea. The Russian Black Sea Fleet was forced to leave the ports of the Crimean peninsula, relocating to the Caucasus coast. Now Russian warships are very cautiously leaving places and for short periods of time, constantly wary of attacks by Ukrainian naval drones.
As a result, the Ukrainian ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa and Pivdenny were unblocked. Ukrainian ports on the Danube are operating, trade routes are open and secured, including for Ukrainian grain, which is delivered to food-demanding countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Attacks on military facilities and infrastructure on enemy territory
In 2022, in a series of comments and interviews, Budanov formulated another military strategic priority - to beat the enemy on its own territory, to shift the burden of war onto the shoulders of the aggressor state. Accordingly, one of the important tasks for Ukrainian intelligence was the destruction of enemy long-range aviation, the most deadly for the civilian population of Ukraine.
On February 26, 2023, a Russian A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft was disabled by a successful UAV attack at the Machulishche military airfield near Minsk in Belarus. In August 2023, a reconnaissance group of GUR under the command of Oleh Babiy (Hero of Ukraine posthumously) secretly covered a distance of 600 km behind enemy lines and destroyed a TU-22M3 bomber at the Soltsy airfield in the Novgorod region and disabled two more aircraft.
On January 14, 2024, a joint operation of GUR and the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed an A-50U long-range radar detection aircraft, the crew died. The Il-22M air command post was also damaged. According to a similar scenario, on April 19 of the same year, a Tu-22M3 strategic bomber was destroyed at a distance of 308 km from the launch site of the anti-aircraft missile.
In March 2024, an offensive operation was carried out in the Kursk and Belgorod regions of the Russian Federation, in particular, by Russian volunteers from the Russian Volunteer Corps, the Freedom of Russia Legion, and the Siberian Battalion. This operation, like the previous one, carried out in May 2023, was a sounding of the ground for a further large-scale offensive operation by several brigades in August in the Kursk region.
In April 2024, Budanov outlined a new ambitious plan aimed at reducing the Russian military potential, which included the military industry, military airfields, command posts, warehouses, and logistics hubs of the aggressor country. And already on April 17, GUR fighters used UAVs to attack the 590th separate military radio-technical node in the city of Kovylkino (Mordovia, 680 km from the Ukrainian border), destroying the 29B6 "Container" over-the-horizon radar. On April 24, GUR drones attacked the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant in the city of Lipetsk.
On May 27, GUR UAVs attacked the over-the-horizon radar station Voronezh M in the city of Orsk, Orenburg region (1,800 km from the Ukrainian border).
On June 8, a multi-role Su-57 fighter jet was hit at the Akhtubinsk airfield in the Astrakhan region, and another aircraft of this class was damaged. This was the first time in history that a Su-57 was hit. On August 16 of the same year, GUR launched a strike with kamikaze drones at the Savasleyka airfield, where three military aircraft were destroyed, including one MiG-31K/I, and five more aircraft were significantly damaged.
On October 12, an enemy fuel and lubricants base was successfully hit in the temporarily occupied city of Rovenky, Luhansk region. On December 21, a warehouse with parts for up to 400 Shahed-136 kamikaze drones worth $16 million burned down in the Alabuga economic zone in Russian Tatarstan.
On January 31, 2025, a strike was carried out on LLC Lukoil-Volgogradnefteperebuka in the Volgograd region, which is one of the ten largest oil refineries in the Russian Federation. On January 26, drones struck the facilities of the Ryazan Oil Refining Company, one of the four Russian monopolists and suppliers to the army. Experts believe that accidents at Russian refineries are the most effective sanctions on Russia's exports of petroleum products and oil. Analysts argue that the military purpose of strikes on refineries is to distract enemy air defense and missile defense assets (for example, Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile and gun complexes) from other tasks at the front, since it is necessary to cover a large number of refineries.
The use of UAVs by GUR units proved that they can inflict damage 2,000 km deep into the aggressor country on various military facilities. As a result of the operations carried out, the concept of a "safe rear" for the Russians ceased to exist.
In an interview in 2024 with the American publication The Philadelphia Inquirer, the commander of Ukrainian military intelligence said that he was "a fan" of strikes on Russian territory using long-range drones and had advocated for this since the first days of the war. "That is why, since the spring of 2022, we have begun to conduct significant operations on the territory of the Russian Federation, and we will go further, the more resources we have for this. And Russia has begun to feel it," Budanov said.
Ukrainian military intelligence drones continue to methodically destroy high-value Russian air defense, warehouses, and military production facilities hundreds of kilometers from our border.
Work in Africa
A good example of the strategy of asymmetric actions of GUR is the opposition to the Kremlin's plans to take control of individual countries in Asia and Africa, to use their natural resources and wealth to increase its military power. The Wagner private military company (PMC) and the so-called African Corps include many war criminals who committed crimes against the civilian population of Ukraine and are a legitimate target for Ukrainian special forces. Just retribution finds them in the Middle East and Africa.
Syria was not just a country controlled by the Kremlin - it was a strategic and largest military-logistical hub for the Russian military contingent in Africa. Military aircraft arrived from the Russian Federation to Khmeimim, from where the mercenaries flew further to Sudan, Libya, Mali, and the Central African Republic.
The change of power in Syria was a personal defeat for Putin, because huge funds and resources were invested in the Assad regime and the Russian military presence in Syria. The operation to liberate Syria from the pro-Moscow regime was being prepared for more than one month and was brilliantly carried out. The time will come, and the details of the gradual overthrow of the Assad regime will be revealed, in which many countries played a role, including with the participation of GUR specialists.
The Kremlin sees Africa as a promising market for the sale of its outdated products, especially after the introduction of sanctions and restrictions against it in many world markets. At the same time, supplies of food and essential goods are blocked to countries over which Moscow has no military-political influence, and thus the Putin regime condemns the local population of African countries, which are on the verge of survival, to hunger and suffering and pushes for anti-government protests. The Russian Federation, through its own proxy forces, promotes the establishment and supports dictatorial regimes in West Africa (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger), strengthens the anti-Western integration of the continent, and drains resources from these countries.
Unlike the Russian Federation, Ukraine does not pursue any military-political goals in Africa. The main efforts of Ukraine in cooperation with the countries of the African continent are aimed at humanitarian aid and economic cooperation. The activities of GUR on the African continent are aimed at identifying and counteracting war crimes committed there by the Russian Federation, namely the Wagner PMC and the so-called African Corps.
In 2025, Budanov, in the context of GUR operations in Syria and Mali, said in an interview that the partners did not provide assistance to Ukraine, and therefore Ukrainian intelligence officers had to act independently. Despite the fact that the topic of the presence of GUR special forces in Syria and Mali is still politically sensitive, it is known that this was cooperation with local rebel groups and joint planning of a number of operations against Russian proxies supporting pro-Kremlin regimes.
Prisoners of War
A separate page of GUR's work is the release of Ukrainian defenders and civilians, mainly through the mechanism of exchanging them for Russian invaders. For this purpose, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed Budanov to create an interdepartmental Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which he headed on May 31, 2022.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Coordination Headquarters, as part of exchanges and special measures, has returned 5,757 military and civilian personnel and 9,744 bodies of the dead to Ukraine from Russian captivity (as of now, return measures are ongoing, so this figure is not final).
In their activities regarding Russian prisoners of war and their mercenaries, GUR and Ukraine strictly and consistently adhere to the Geneva Conventions, which cannot be said about the Russian side, which tortures Ukrainian prisoners of war, military and civilians, turning their lives into hell.
The last important action carried out by the Coordination Headquarters was on February 14, 2025, when, as a result of the next repatriation event, the bodies of 757 heroically fallen Ukrainian soldiers were returned to Ukraine.
* * *
The owl, a symbol of wisdom and determination, is a key element of GUR emblem. This bird hunts at dusk, when the victim loses vigilance and does not see mortal danger. Unpredictability and unexpectedness are the main recipes for the success of Ukrainian military intelligence. Today, GUR is one of the most influential special services on the European continent, and the intensity and multifunctionality of special operations by Ukrainian intelligence officers is a separate, multifaceted success story that is still waiting for its researchers.
In the meantime, the struggle continues, as does the planning and implementation of new bold ideas. The Ukrainian owl does not stop hunting.