Russia has launched a new fake against Ukraine. This time, Russian social media is spreading the “news” that the Chief Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhnyi and the Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov allegedly conspired to carry out a “coup d’etat” in Ukraine.
The Russians tried to “disguise” their fake as foreign “primary sources,” but they did it extremely poorly. The details are provided by InfoLight.UA, a project that specializes in raising media literacy, fighting fakes and propaganda.
Russian Telegram channels began spreading a new fake about an alleged “coup d’état” in Ukraine on November 10. The messages circulating in public, particularly those of a so-called “Novorossiysk” orientation, stated that the “coup” would be led by Zaluzhny and Budanov, who, according to Russian propagandists, had conspired.
According to InfoLight.UA, this is not the first time such attempts to split the military and political leadership of Ukraine and undermine the situation inside our country have been recorded. But this time there are some interesting details.
According to the project, the primary source of the “sensation” is the Chinese website sina.com.cn. However, InfoLight.UA was unable to find the actual “news” on this site.
“Despite all our efforts, we did not find this information on the sites whose screenshots are being distributed by the enemy. However, our team does not have people who are fluent in Chinese, so we leave open the possibility that such information was published. Although everything looks like a banal editing of the page code,” the statement said.
Another “source” was the Asia Times website, which is visited by up to 2 million users a month, mostly from the United States. There is “news” there. However, it exposes the creators and beneficiaries of the “sensation”.
In particular, the publication states: “There is a growing consensus that the West (meaning the United States with the help of the United Kingdom) wants to replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. My friend and colleague Larry Johnson believes that the CIA and MI6 in the UK are already preparing the ground. Either Zelensky will be forced to call a presidential election scheduled for March next year and then be replaced, or if he resists, he will be replaced anyway in a Maidan-style upheaval.”
At the same time, a hyperlink was added to the words “Larry Johnson believes”, clicking on which takes the reader to a website where “Larry Johnson”, who is presented as a “retired CIA officer”, allegedly expressed his position: this is the website of the Sputnik news agency, which is part of the Kremlin-controlled Rossiya Segodnya media group.
“So, to summarize: taking advantage of the internal Ukrainian situation and “heating up” the topic of Valeriy Zaluzhny’s resignation and his alleged conflict with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the enemy almost immediately, albeit on its knees, created another fake aimed at making another split in Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian Defense Forces. It is important to be careful about this and not to spread unverified information. It is also important to minimize internal political conflicts until the end of the war,” summarizes the InfoLight.UA team.
Source: OBOZ