Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense on Wednesday denied the deaths of Army Chief General Valery Zaluzhny and Ground Forces Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi after several Russian Telegram accounts persistently spread information throughout the day that Zaluzhnyi and Sirskyi had been “liquidated” by Russian forces, Ukrainian media reported. , including Unian, Ukrinform and “Dzerkalo Tyzhnya”, captured by Agerpres.

“There is information circulating in the Russian information space about the alleged liquidation of our commanders. In a week there were three messages about it. I inform you that they are all alive,” Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar reported in Telegram.

Through such fake news, the enemy usually pursues several goals: psychological influence on people, demoralization of the Ukrainian military, short-term fights on the topic of raising the morale of their own troops, the Ukrainian deputy minister explained.

“This is only an insignificant public episode, from which you can understand the conditions under which our command is fighting,” said Malyar.

How rumors spread in the Russian mass media

The information in the Russian media appeared after it became known that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhnyi will not be able to participate in the meeting of the NATO Military Committee.

At the opening on Wednesday of the meeting of the commanders of the armies of the NATO member countries, Rob Bauer, the chairman of the Military Committee, said that Valery Zaluzhnyi will not be able to participate in this meeting even in the format of a video conference due to difficult operational work. the situation at the front, notes Unian.

Major General Serhiy Salkutan, the representative of the Ukrainian army at NATO, was to present data on the situation at the front in Ukraine.

Recently, the head of Wagner’s mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that the commander of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine, Ihor Tansyura, would be destroyed during the hostilities. Kyiv later denied his death, reports Unian.

The Washington think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) explained that such information is being spread by the Russian side to create a hostile atmosphere against the background of the expected Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Who else is fighting in Bakhmut? How the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and Chief Wagner differ

Russia said on Wednesday that its troops repelled Ukrainian counterattacks from the flanks in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, after Yevgeny Prigozhin said a day earlier that a unit of the Russian armed forces had left their positions on Monday, EFE news agency reported.

“Units of the airborne troops are repelling the enemy’s actions on the flanks,” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in Moscow.

Konashenkov also reported that the assault troops, referring to the mercenaries of HVK “Wagner”, “continued offensive actions to seize areas on the northwestern and western outskirts of the city of Artemivsk” (Russian name Bakhmut).

Konashenkov’s comments came after Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin accused the Defense Ministry of “doing everything possible to collapse the front,” saying a unit of the Russian regular army “ran away and left its positions” on one of the flanks.

Spokesman of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Ihor Konashenkov (Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation / UPI / Profimedia)

The conquest of this flank cost the lives of 500 Wagner mercenaries and left an area almost two kilometers wide and 500 kilometers deep unprotected.

The 3rd Separate Airborne Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed on its Telegram account on Tuesday evening that one of the Russian brigades that was trying to take full control of the city of Bakhmut had abandoned its position, leaving behind “500 corpses”.

Russia began its offensive on Bakhmut in August 2022. Despite the fact that it controls most of the city – 95%, according to Prigozhin – Russian troops have not yet managed to completely expel the Ukrainians from this insignificant city, in the conquest of which they invested money. significant technical and human resources.

Ukraine also suffered heavy losses under Bakhmut. Kyiv justifies its persistence in defending its last positions in this city by exhausting Russian troops, preventing them from launching offensive actions in other areas of the front, such as Kramatorsk and Slovyansk (east).