The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, posted on his Telegram channel a video in which, possibly, the Armed Forces of Ukraine control their actions, performing “the most difficult tasks”.
“Together with the Chief of General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Sergei Shaptala, we worked in groups of troops that performed the most difficult tasks in the regions where the fiercest battles took place,” says the video description.
In the footage, Zaluzhny is shown on the street and inside, where you can see the date of the video recording on the wall – June 17. It also shows that the 479th day of hostilities continues.
In turn, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, made a special comment on the Kiev Post portal:
“Now a special detachment of immortal commanders is being created in Ukraine – Valery Zaluzhny, myself, Stepan Bandera, Symon Petlyura, Ivan Mazepa. Therefore, the Russians and their propagandists will have a lot of work to do in a tense, hysterical atmosphere. A detachment of the undead will enter the dreams of Russian citizens at night … and bring them nightmares!
There was no confirmation that Budanov and Zaluzhny were alive for about a month.
Where are Zaluzhny and Budanov?
Kiev has repeatedly denied information about their injuries or deaths. So, on June 16, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that they were present at the military cabinet meeting. However, the head of state did not provide a photo or video to confirm this.
“There was another incident today, another item that has not yet been reported on my schedule. This is a military office. Our commanders: Generals Syrsky, Tarnavsky, Zaluzhny, Shaptala… There was also Budanov,” said Zelensky.
At the same time, representative of the GUR Andrey Yusov, broadcasting a telethon on Ukrainian television, said that Budanov was “in excellent health”, had an “excellent appetite” and was “fully at work”.
On May 10, it became known that Zaluzhny refused to attend the NATO Military Committee meeting at the level of the chiefs of staff. Rumors about his disability or death began to spread on Telegram channels. RIA Novosti reported that on May 25, citing a source from law enforcement, he received head and shrapnel wounds as a result of an attack by the Russian Armed Forces on a command post near the village of Posad-Pokrovskoye, near Kherson. in early May. The source also noted that the commander-in-chief will live but will not be able to fulfill his duties.
On June 15, an employee of the Russian law enforcement agencies, citing Ukrainian intelligence sources, said: DEA NewsThe rocket “fly into the office next to it,” where Budanov was wounded during a Russian attack on the GUR building in Kiev. According to him, after Budanov was wounded, he was taken by helicopter to a military base in Poland, and from there to a hospital in Germany. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the attack on the building of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine on May 30.
“We have already mentioned the possibility of strikes in decision-making centers, in decision-making centers. Of course, the Ukrainian military intelligence headquarters, which was shot down two or three days ago, also falls into this category,” he said.
On June 17, Ilya Kiva, a former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada and a member of the Right Sector (an organization banned in Russia), citing a source from the Ukrainian Embassy in Germany, said: “Budanov is dead … keep it for a long time.
On June 18, Putin admitted that Zaluzhny was abroad: “You ask him where he is, for this you need to switch to a foreign language. I guess abroad. I could be wrong”. At the same time, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported that they could not confirm whether Zaluzhny was alive.
In contrast, RIA Novosti reportedThe reception of the Bundeswehr hospital in Berlin did not confirm that Budanov was being treated with them. As the agency’s reporter put it, the man who received the call “returned with an answer after the last name and initial dictation letters were gone, and after talking to someone for about a minute.”
Located in the Mitte district of central Berlin, the hospital has been known for treating the Ukrainian army here since 2014.