Sundance at CTH has said many times that the CIA and State Dept. have differing agendas, and fight each other as hard as the fight the Russians. He says The Washington Post is the CIA "news" outlet, and the NYT represents State.
Draw your own conclusions.
The other thing is that neither the Wash Post or CNN have touched this story.
If there were major things that were wrong in this story, or the CIA wanted to dispute, they would use the Post to do it.
The story also goes thru how a location previously bombed by Russia, they built a bunker underneath, had the workmen park far away etc.
It’s like a message to Putin, wind up a Kinzal and bomb our underground bunker !
Who of any of this gang has the incentive to do that? Budanov might be in that bunker when it is blown up.
Often the State Dept job is cover for a person’s CIA status