About three weeks ago, Austrian intelligence agencies recorded a meeting in Vienna between representatives of Ukrainian military intelligence and contacts of a Serbian criminal group. According to diplomatic sources, Austria has already sent Ukraine an official request asking it to explain the circumstances of the negotiations.
According to the publication "from-ua" , it was about intermediaries of the Serbian cartel, which received an order to eliminate or kidnap a close associate of President Volodymyr Zelensky - businessman Timur Mindich. In July 2025, he left Ukraine, and in early August, information appeared about the plans of Serbian special forces to physically eliminate him.
After that, the GUR, probably on the personal instructions of the president, sent a group of special forces to Vienna. It included the commander of the elite unit "Artan", former sniper Viktor Torkotyuk, known by the call sign "Titan". The group's task was to do everything possible to cancel the "order" and ensure Mindich's safe return to Ukraine.
Mindych left the country a few days before NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors prepared a case of large-scale embezzlement against him. According to the investigation, through controlled companies, he was involved in corruption schemes with the purchase of transformers and power equipment for KharkivOblenergo. His cousin Leonid has already been detained in the same case.
However, in Europe, Mindych found himself in an even more dangerous position. He has attracted the attention not only of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, but also of international criminal structures and Russian special services. He is valuable to criminal groups due to his access to financial flows from the Kolomoisky era, and to Moscow as a potential lever of influence over Zelensky in the context of secret peace negotiations.
The key figure in the negotiations with the Serbs was Viktor Torkotyuk. He is considered the right-hand man of the head of the GUR, Kyrylo Budanov. Their cooperation has been going on since the ATO. In addition, Torkotyuk maintains close ties with the deputy head of the President's Office, Oleg Tatarov, with whom he once competed in the same Thai boxing team.
Sources claim that it was thanks to his contacts in the criminal environment that Torkotyuk organized a channel of communication with representatives of the Serbian cartel. He has informal influence on transnational organized crime groups operating in Europe and Latin America, and in Ukraine he has formed his own network of so-called "sports youth" numbering up to 600 people.
For Budanov, "Titan" became not only a tool for working with international crime, but also a counterweight to the influence of the SBU, where General Andriy Poklad, according to available information, is trying to achieve the resignation of the head of the GUR.
Mindich's escape posed a serious threat to Bankova. He was privy not only to Zelensky's personal affairs but also to sensitive details of the closed-door negotiations on a possible peace. Now this information is beyond Kyiv's control.
Against this background, the person of Budanov, with whom Zelensky had a difficult relationship until recently, takes on a new significance. It is he who can guarantee Mindich's safety and at the same time preserve the interests of the state. And it is because of this that today there is frank nervousness in the corridors of power.
