Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence Directorate, known as HUR, staged the death of high-ranking Russian military official fighting on the side of Ukraine and tricked Moscow into paying a $500,000 bounty for an assassination that did not happen.
The agency released video footage of alleged death of Denis Kapustin, leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps and “Timur Special Unit” and used it to collect a bounty of $500,000. The footage captures a drone striking a minibus moments after Kapustin is seen getting inside. Subsequent scenes show the vehicle burning following the attack.
According to HUR, “To reinforce the narrative, a video demonstrating the operation of two strike drones was produced.”
HUR said that Russian intelligence agencies, which had placed a bounty on Kapustin, accepted the footage as genuine. The funds obtained as a result, the agency added, “will substantially strengthen the operational capacity of HUR’s special forces.”
Kapustin, who goes by the alias “White Rex,” is the commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, a unit made up of Russian nationals fighting on Ukraine’s side since 2014. In 2023 and 2024, the Russian Volunteer Corps conducted cross-border raids into Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions, working in coordination with other anti-Kremlin Russian groups tied to Ukraine’s defense and security structures, including the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Siberian Battalion.
One day after HUR head Kyrylo Budanov disclosed the covert operation to fake Kapustin’s death, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Budanov had been appointed as the new head of the Presidential Office, serving as his chief of staff.
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