Ukraine denies that the chief of staff was injured and the press chief of Volodymyr Zelenskyi claimed that the military leader had also consulted with the president this morning.
Regardless, the Russian media continues to insist on the claim that Zaluzhny was injured, citing that Kiev has not published any photos of the Ukrainian Chief of Staff for days and no photographic evidence of today’s meeting has been published. According to RIA Novosztyi, the Ukrainian chief of staff underwent surgery, his condition is stable, but he will not be able to perform his duties.
Yesterday, Alena Sevcova, the spokeswoman for the command of the Ukrainian ground forces, tried to refute the claims of the Russian press with a photo in which she is seen together with the Ukrainian chief of staff. According to the Russian news agencies, the recording is actually old, taken at the beginning of May. Sevcova interestingly deleted the photo from her social media pages after the articles appeared in the Russian media.
The Russian media did not publish any evidence of Zaluzhny’s alleged injury, there were several times before that news of the Ukrainian military leader’s death was published. At the same time, it can truly be said that the Chief of Staff has not appeared in public since the beginning of May, and the image of the spokesperson of the ground forces with the old photo can be said to be strange no matter how you look at it.
On the other hand, the fact that an important military leader does not appear in public for a long time during a war is not unusual. At the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu also “disappeared” for several weeks.
Cover photo: Yurii Stefanyak/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Tags: Russian media reporting Ukrainian Chief Staff Valery Zaluzhny injured
