Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar denied media and Telegram’s assumptions that the public absence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhny, could be attributed to the injury or death of the military leader.
“The commander is in place. does his job. We just talked,” Maliar wrote on his Telegram channel, claiming that “the Russians started a wave of information regarding the alleged disappearance of Zaluzhny.”
He also denied data on the death of a soldier in a telethon broadcast. Maliar expressed the view that the spread of such rumors could indicate a possible imminent assassination attempt on the commander-in-chief and other Ukrainian generals.
The official found another explanation for what had happened: “The peak of tension in Bakhmut came when even a few demoralized soldiers on our part would make the situation easier for them.” For the sake of this, the deputy head of the Ministry of Defense believes that “there are a number of early reports about the ‘capture’ of Bakhmut.”
Malyar noted that in recent weeks, there have been “deaths” about the commander of the Regional Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Ihor Tantsyura, the commander of the Ukrainian land forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, and the commander-in-chief. Valery Zaluzhny of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“On the one hand, it’s easy to check and refute. That’s actually what was done. On the other hand, it should be understood that the Russians are prone to false starts, and often the employees of the information fronts give information without direct approval from the practitioners, ”says.
Earlier, the Ukrainian Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that Zaluzhny spoke by phone with the US Chief of Staff, Mark Milley, recently.
On May 19, Prigogine commented on the news about the death of Zaluzhny: “For obvious reasons, I do not have comprehensive information about what happened to Valery Fedorovich Zaluzhny. One thing I can say is that on 10, 11 and 12 May we did a number of events while we were in range of our guns. How successful they are is still unclear. Time will show us”.
Citing a source, Russian military correspondent Andrey Rudenko said on the Telegram channel on May 20 that Zaluzhny was seriously injured.
“According to the information we received from our source, led by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, General Zaluzhny is alive, but is in critical condition in the main military clinical hospital where he is fighting for his life. with the participation of foreign experts”.
The journalist claims that “On May 8, Zaluzhny was seriously injured at one of the command posts of the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Dnepropetrovsk region, while checking the readiness of formations and units for a counterattack.”
He remembers that a missile attack was carried out on military infrastructure facilities in the region that day. Rudenko writes that the command post where Zaluzhny was located also came under fire. On the same day – May 8 – Zaluzhny disappeared from the media space.
“Information about the injury of Zaluzhny is indirectly confirmed by the fact that on May 10 his wife Elena was seen on the way from Novospitalnaya Street to the Kiev military hospital, where she stayed for more than four hours,” said the military commander.
Rudenko explains the position of the Ukrainian authorities, this information should be hidden by the Ukrainian authorities in order not to cause panic among the leadership of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian military personnel.
“Ukrainian special services were tasked with demonstrating their activities in every possible way while Zaluzhny is struggling for his life,” he says.
As an example, Rudenko cites “any “stupid” interview or photos from the commander-in-chief’s holiday in Cyprus “on the network allegedly recently recorded”.
In another post on his Telegram channel, Rudenko attaches a screenshot allegedly taken from a Facebook page of “one of the employees of the National Military Medical Clinic Center of Ukraine” (the owner of Meta was considered an extremist and banned in Russia).
“On May 8, Alina Slobodyanyuk published information on the admission to the Kiev hospital of a large number of wounded, for which, according to her, someone was “very respectful”, said army commander Andrei Rudenko.
On May 10, the head of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, opening the meeting of the NATO Chiefs of Staff, said that the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces refused to meet with NATO chiefs. “tense situation” due to the General Staff.
“Yesterday I received a letter from the Ukrainian commander Zaluzhny informing him that he could not attend the NATO Military Committee meeting, even in video format, due to the tense operational situation on the ground. Bauer pledged to continue to fully support Kiev from the North Atlantic Alliance.
On the same day, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar denied media assumptions that Zaluzhny was dead.
On May 13, an interview with Ukrainian correspondent Dmitry Komarov by Valery Zaluzhny appeared on the network, in which the military leader evaluated the Chief of the General Staff of Russia Valery Gerasimov.
“There is a military leader in Russia that I read constantly. Unfortunately nothing is published now. I’m interested in his opinion. This is General Gerasimov,” said Zaluzhny.
It is not specified when the interview was recorded, it was broadcast by a Ukrainian journalist as part of a series of films.