HUR has published video footage of Kapustin's staged "death," which the agency used to collect a $500,000 bounty. The video shows a drone strike on a minibus shortly after Kapustin is seen entering the vehicle.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) released video footage on Jan. 2 showing how they convinced the Kremlin that Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK) Commander Denis Kapustin had been killed in order to claim bounty money from Moscow.

Kapustin’s death in a combat mission in Zaporizhzhia Oblast was reported on Dec. 27. HUR then revealed on Jan. 1 that Kapustin is alive and that the earlier reports were part of a complex special operation to mislead Russian intelligence services, who had ordered the commander’s assassination.

HUR has published video footage of Kapustin’s staged “death,” which the agency used to collect a $500,000 bounty. The video shows a direct drone hit on a minibus shortly after Kapustin is seen entering the vehicle. Later, video shows the bus engulfed in flames in the aftermath of the strike.

“To support the legend, a video of the work of two strike drones was created,” HUR said.

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Video filmed by HUR and published Jan 2., 2026, shows the staged “death” of Russian Volunteer Corps Commander Denis Kapustin. (HUR / Telegram)

The Russian intelligence services who placed the bounty on Kapustin’s head “believed the video,” HUR said, and the reward money the agency collected “will significantly enhance the combat capabilities of the HUR special forces.”

Kapustin, also known by his nom de guerre “White Rex,” leads the Russian Volunteer Corps, a military unit of Russian volunteers who have been fighting for Ukraine since 2014. The RDK has carried out cross-border incursions into Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk oblasts in 2023 and 2024, operating alongside other anti-Kremlin Russian formations linked to Ukraine’s defense and security forces, like the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Siberian Battalion.

The day after HUR chief Kyrylo Budanov revealed the special operation to stage Kapustin’s death, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Budanov had been tapped to lead the Presidential Office as his new chief of staff.

Zelensky will appoint Oleh Ivashchenko, the current Foreign Intelligence Service chief, to replace Budanov as head of HUR, an official in the President’s Office told the Kyiv Independent on Jan. 2.

Read also: Zelensky picks Military Intelligence Head Budanov as his new chief of staff

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