On Monday, June 5, RIA Novosti published an article under the heading “Reports appeared in the Ukrainian media about the death of the head of the GUR Budanov.” Itsays :
“In Ukraine, the news is spreading about the death of the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov, the state Center for Combating Disinformation said in its Telegram channel.
“On behalf of the Ukrainian media, the news is spreading allegedly about the death of Kyrylo Budanov. According to these reports, the head of Ukrainian intelligence was killed in a recent missile strike, and preparations for his burial are already underway at the Ukrainian House national center,” the ministry said.
But the center claims that these messages are information stuffing.
At the same time, Budanov has not appeared publicly since May 29. On that day, for the last time, he posted a video on his Telegram channel in which he threatened Moscow with a speedy response to missile strikes.”
Gazeta.ru, EurAsia Daily , Daily Storm and others also write about this.
But such information cannot be found in the Ukrainian media – there are only reports of a fake spread by the Russian media. The news about the death of Budanov was allegedly published by the Ukrainian online publication Telegraph; A screenshot imitating the design of the Telegraph website has been published in Russian Telegram channels and social networks – of course, without reference to the source. But in the Telegraph itself, this message is not and was not – otherwise it would have been stored in the Goggle cache and Internet archives.
The Telegraph itself writes :
“Russian propagandists have already disgraced themselves with statements about the death of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny, but they did not stop there and now began to spread information that the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Kirill Budanov, allegedly died during a missile attack. At the same time, in order to add credibility to their fantasies, they made a stuffing on behalf of the Ukrainian media and even used the style of the Telegraph website for this.
Of course, Telegraph did not publish information of this kind, and therefore such statements are nothing more than an absurd fake for the Russian consumer.”
Apparently, one of the first to publish a fake screenshot was the Telegram channel of Channel One host Ruslan Ostashko, where it is accompanied by the following comment:
“The National Center “Ukrainian House” has begun preparations for the funeral of a “very serious person,” according to Ukrainian media.
“Farewell will take place soon. The workers said that they would bury Kirill Budanov, who died after a recent rocket attack on the power steering, ”the Ukrainian channels write.
It is not yet possible to verify this information. We are waiting for official confirmation."
The post in the Ostashko channel was created at 15:19 on June 3. But instead of confirmation, two days later there were only publications in the Kremlin propaganda media with an indistinct mention of some Ukrainian publications.
Budanov has indeed not made any public statements since May 29, but this is not the responsibility of the head of military intelligence. It is pointless to wonder if he is alive, since the only source of "information" about his death is an obvious fake.