Former SSU General Naumov: Bakanov referred me to Security Service. He left Ukraine on eve of Russian invasion by coincidence
Former SBU General Andrii Naumov claims that all the accusations against him are a deliberate discrediting campaign coming from the Presidential Office
Former SSU General Andrii Naumov said this in an interview with the BBC, Censor.NET reports.
"After my career in the prosecutor's office, I was assigned to Chornobyl, and after Chornobyl, to the SSU. I knew Bakanov in my life. He offered me a job at the SSU," says Naumov, adding that he went through a "thorough and long recruitment process."
He also assures that all the accusations against him are the result of a discrediting campaign.
"It so happened that there could have been enough customers. All this is since at the time of my work in the internal security department, a lot of employees who were involved in some scandals somewhere were leaving the service.
And many of them ended up in the Presidential Office in high positions or as advisors. Many of them ended up in the State Bureau of Investigation and other bodies. A large army of enemies was formed to discredit them. But the main customer for discrediting was the Presidential Office, which had to dismiss Bakanov at any cost," Naumov said.
He also said something about the influence of Oleh Tatarov.
"His influence was too active, and he was constantly expanding the circle of leaders who were previously beyond his control. He used promises of medals and positions and various motivations. And when the managers were already favorable to him, he assigned them his tasks directly, bypassing the subordination. Thus, his influence grew," says Naumov.
"I received recommendations from him on how I should behave in certain matters. And I always pointed out that I have one boss - if he assigns me these tasks, I will fulfill them. For my part, I could go to clarify whether there was such a task from above. As a rule, I received the answer that there was no such task, so stay out of it," he adds.
When asked who was behind the campaign to discredit Naumov, he replied: "In my situation, it turned out that there are a sufficient number of customers and enemies, but globally, all connections lead to two people - Tatarov ("Oleh Tatarov" - Deputy Head of the OP) and Smнrnov ("Andrii Smyrnov" - Deputy Head of the OP). They are the ultimate beneficiaries of my story."
In his opinion, Smyrnov had his own motivation, as he had ambitions for the SSU.
Naumov noted that he did not know about the full-scale Russian invasion in advance, and his trip abroad the day before the invasion "had nothing to do with it."
"Since the beginning of January 2022, my family has been living in Germany, primarily for security reasons. In general, the family should have moved earlier. But since my child was born on November 21 (2021), our departure was postponed. I planned for my family to leave even earlier so that they would not be under the pressure I was under. I decided to take the family out. I decided that the family was leaving. I was not leaving. I planned to stay in Ukraine. Because my family had left, I was just going to visit them. My departure was on the night of February 22-23 through the Uzhhorod checkpoint at half past one in the morning. That is, it was not a few hours before the start of a full-scale war, but a little more than a day," explained the former SSU general.
According to him, it was a coincidence. He was planning to return to Ukraine after he had taken things for his family.
"I set a maximum of 10 days for myself. ... The war started and I had to deal with other issues - issues of providing for my family for a longer stay abroad. At that time, I realized that the war had started and that this story would last for a long time. I had to decide where my family would live. And at that moment, the story of high treason and other things began to spread...", said Naumov.
