Russian propaganda invents story about Ukraine's Defence Intelligence chief being "seriously injured"
The Russian propaganda machine has released a fake news story to the media about a missile supposedly hitting the building of Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence and seriously injuring Defence Intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov.
Source: well-known Russian propaganda mouthpiece RIA Novosti
Details: RIA Novosti quotes a mysterious "employee of the Russian security forces" who apparently received this information from "sources in Ukrainian intelligence".
The report says that "Budanov was injured on 29 May during a Russian attack on a building of his department" and that "the missile hit the office next to Budanov’s".
But the flight of fancy didn’t stop there. The propagandists also claimed that "after Budanov was injured, he was taken by helicopter to a military base in Rzeszów, Poland. A US evacuation plane flew there especially to collect him and took the Ukrainian intelligence chief to Germany."
The "sensational" report ends with the words "Budanov is currently in a hospital in Berlin. He is in a serious condition."
RIA Novosti even posted Flightradar maps that supposedly prove the transportation of the "wounded" spy chief.
However, on 29 May, the day that Defence Intelligence was supposedly bombed, Ukrainian military intelligence posted a video in which a cheerful Budanov says: "All those in the Russian Federation who still believed, believe or maybe dream that they could intimidate Ukraine, I want to upset you: everyone was and still is at their workplaces and continues to do their work."
Defence Intelligence has posted videos of Budanov since then. For example, on 11 June, a silent Budanov sits there being filmed, clearly alive and well, and reminds Ukrainians that "plans [i.e. the counteroffensive – UP] like silence".
Background:
- In May, Russian propagandists, citing unnamed sources, began spreading the fake news that Commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi had received a head injury and multiple shrapnel wounds during an alleged missile attack in early May on a command post near the village of Posad-Pokrovske near Kherson.
- The Armed Forces of Ukraine posted a video of Zaluzhnyi to dispel the propaganda lies.
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