Alleged call for a coup: Fake news surrounding Zaluzhnyi

Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny

Russian propagandists launched a new fake about the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Allegedly, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, is «inciting the military to a coup d'état» amid rumors of his resignation.

This was announced by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security.

Russian Telegram channels are distributing a video message with the message that «General Zaluzhnyi, after the news of his resignation, called on the Defense Forces to stage a demarche on Kyiv and seize power.»

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In fact, as the Center explained, the fake video was generated by propaganda with the help of artificial intelligence, and was based on Valerii Zaluzhnyi's address on the occasion of Armed Forces Day on December 6, 2023. In the original video, the propagandists changed the color scheme and blurred the background.

«The fakers also filled the video series with a typical set of Kremlin narratives, such as: 'complete failure at the front', 'total corruption in Ukraine', 'terrorist acts by Zelenskyi', 'soldiers are being sent to slaughter,'» the message reads.

In addition, there is no such video on Valerii Zaluzhnyi's official or personal page.

We will remind you that in the fall, Russian Telegram channels began to spread fake news about the war — propagandists said that the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi allegedly gave the order to «prepare for defense between Mykolaiv and Odesa.»

This is not the first fake related to Mykolaiv that Russian propagandists are trying to make. Before that, they wrote that the SBU and the National Police were apparently preparing a provocation with the use of biological weapons in the Mykolayiv region.

Also, NikVesti wrote an article »How the Russian Federation misinforms the world about the situation in Mykolaiv.»