Zaluzhnyi sends greetings to Moscow: propaganda digest for June 19, 2023
The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security has compiled the main fakes and propaganda narratives for June 19.
- Putin stammers at the name of the Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
- Naryshkin's "dirty bomb"
- What is the Kremlin hiding from the UN in Kherson region?
- New "war game" from the Russian Defense Ministry
Putin stammers at the name of the Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Russia continues to master a new genre - the publication of videos from the closed part of Putin's recent meeting with the "war correspondents" that took place on June 13.
On June 18, the day Shoigu's "devastating deal" was revealed, Putin said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi had allegedly gone abroad. Trying to pronounce the name of the Ukrainian general, the Russian dictator began to stutter and suggested asking him about the whereabouts of the Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief, but using a foreign language: "It seems to me that he is abroad. Maybe I'm wrong…".
IN FACT, the very next day, Zaluzhnyi, alive and well, posted a video. In a combat situation. And just in case, a letter was highlighted specifically for the Russian fake news outlets led by Putin (the rest, of course, was blotted out), with the date June 17, 2023.
It is hard to say whether this was a direct response by Zaluzhnyi to Putin's stuttering. But at the end of May, we recall that the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine conveyed greetings to another Russian official, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Naryshkin, who was also "worried" about him at the time.
Until Putin began to stutter again when he pronounced the name of the head of the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, on June 19 he denied the Russian media reports that he had been either killed or injured. "They and their propagandists will still have a lot of work to do in a nervous, hysterical environment. A detachment of immortals will come in the middle of the night to the dreams of Russian citizens who wanted to seize Ukraine and give them nightmares," Budanov promised.
The Center for Strategic Communications reminds some Ukrainians, who unfortunately also fall for such "stuffing," that in this way the Russians are trying to demoralize Ukrainians with "disappointing news" and create a sense of "loss of control over the situation."
But so far, Putin's stuttering when pronouncing Zaluzhnyi's name and Budanov's promise to continue to "nightmare" Russians seems to be making things look quite the opposite.
A "dirty bomb" from Naryshkin
By the way, on June 19, the same Naryshkin in an interview with "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" "lost" "dozens and hundreds of Ukrainian diplomats" who, according to him, "refuse to return home, not wanting to have anything to do with the Kyiv regime."
Of course, he did not mention any names. However, he "dropped" a new "dirty bomb" on the information battlefield, stating that "a batch of "irradiated fuel" was secretly sent from the Rivne NPP to be hidden in the spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Chernobyl." Naryshkin believes that this is «suspicious".
IN FACT, there is nothing extraordinary in the transportation of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) for storage or reprocessing to the Chornobyl NPP zone. There is an appropriate Centralized Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility (CSNFSF) there, as reported by Energoatom of Ukraine.
This is an IAEA-certified autonomous nuclear facility designed for long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel from the South Ukrainian, Khmelnytsky, and Rivne nuclear power plants.
Previously, it was exported to the Russian Federation (which cost Ukraine about $200 million annually). Kyiv decided to finally stop exporting spent nuclear fuel from its nuclear power plants to Russia a year before the full-scale invasion in February 2021.
It is unclear what exactly seemed "suspicious" to Naryshkin. Perhaps he believes he should have been warned?
Of course, one could once again laugh at the lack of fresh ideas among the "creative team" of Russian intelligence. After all, it appears in the information space mainly on two occasions. The first is the so-called "Polish issue" (Naryshkin regularly asserts that the Poles are seeking to seize the western regions of Ukraine). The second is the "dirty bomb". Back in January, IAEA Director General Grossi pointed out Naryshkin's lies. But here we go again.
Last October, Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia Gerasimov assured foreign media in telephone conversations that Ukraine was allegedly preparing provocations using a "dirty bomb."
The goal, in their opinion, was to accuse Russia of using weapons of mass destruction and turn the whole world against Moscow.
Then a whole story was invented about how "under the guidance of Western curators, Kyiv has already begun to implement this plan."
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry was even forced to invite IAEA inspectors to visit the nuclear facilities listed by the Russians to make sure that these statements were disinformation. The IAEA has confirmed that no one in Ukraine has ever made or is making a dirty bomb.
"The only thing that is dirty in our region now is the heads of those in Moscow who, unfortunately, seized control of the Russian state and are terrorizing Ukraine and the whole world," President Zelensky commented at the time.
Official Ljubljana stated that the photos provided by the Russian Defense Ministry as "evidence" of a "dirty bomb" being made in Ukraine were actually taken in a radioactive waste storage facility in Slovenia back in 2010.
After such a slap in the face, the topic of the "Ukrainian dirty bomb" was somewhat quieted down by the official Russian media. And now it has started again.
In addition to the outright fakeness that accompanied this story before, its current appearance indicates that the Kremlin has a demand for such nonsense. Why? Quite possibly (because of the defeats at the front) to justify a so-called preventive strike or a "false flag operation." They say we were forced to do it.
After the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant was blown up, there are no more "red lines" for Putin. And to cross it again, he has the Zaporizhzhia NPP with all the relevant nuclear fuel ingredients and personnel taken hostage.
What is the Kremlin hiding from the UN in the Kherson region?
In this regard, the story of preventing the UN from entering the flooded territories of the temporarily occupied Kherson region is also interesting. Gennadiy Gatilov, the Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Headquarters in Geneva, emphasized that the organization "should not ignore the fact that Kherson region is part of the Russian Federation, and accordingly, Russian laws must be observed to visit it."
Peskov, in turn, blew the usual smoke, saying that UN officials were not allowed to enter the affected areas because of the shelling.
IN FACT, the coordinator of the UN Special Humanitarian Mission for Ukraine, Denise Brown, issued a statement saying that Moscow is denying the Organization access to the left bank, which is under Russian control.
She called it unacceptable that people in dire need of assistance are being denied it.
The UN claims that the issue was agreed upon as soon as possible, and on June 13, the humanitarian mission teams were ready to leave for Kherson region.
Perhaps Moscow did not like the UN's definition: "territories under the temporary control of Russia" (which is quite obvious, since the international community does not recognize their "annexation"). Therefore, Russia went on a principle and did not allow the humanitarian mission, hiding behind "concern for its safety".
Similar stories happened with the UN mission, which never got to Olenivka, and with IAEA experts who could not get to the ZNPP. We can even recall how Moscow refused to help Western countries rescue the "Kursk" nuclear submarine.
Now the occupation authorities have declared quarantine in the Ukrainian town of Hola Prystan. That is, nothing new is happening. Putin is still disregarding people's lives for his own purposes. Is there anything to hide and anyone to bury?
New "war game" from the Russian Defense Ministry
And finally, about quarantine. The head of the Russian RCBD (radiation, chemical and biological defense) troops, Kirillov, has come up with his new "investigation". His targets are: insects, birds, Americans, Africans, the Kakhovka Reservoir, West Nile fever, and populations of small animals that, according to the insidious Pentagon, carry HIV and hepatitis B.
IN FACT, it took Kirillov a long time to get the next game in: "the Americans blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station to make it easier for the mosquitoes and ticks to fight, Ukrainian birds are already infecting Russian birds, and rodents are on the alert."
It seemed that Nebenzi's topic of "decamarinization of the United States" had come to naught, and Kirillov himself triumphantly took off his gas mask on January 30, when he reported that "we managed to stop the implementation of American military-biological programs in Ukraine."
But as they say, our song is beautiful and new - let's start it again. Even those far from entomology are already asking themselves the question: even if we assume for a moment that Kirillov's words are true, do we have to believe that an American insect is not only equipped with GPS, but can actually distinguish Russians from Ukrainians?
Experts pose a more difficult question: the incubation period for malaria lasts 11 days. (Putin's quarantine is longer - two weeks, as "war correspondent" Sladkov recently learned). So what is the value of the "insect weapon"? What irreparable damage can it cause?
Kirillov's "Kakhovka" direction deserves special territorial attention. He argues that "the flooding of the Kherson region planned by Kyiv can form foci of West Nile fever transmitted by mosquitoes."
Kherson has been on Kirillov's radar since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Back then, he talked about "war worms." Now, in his opinion, the winter outbreak of dirofilariasis (a mosquito-borne disease) in the then-occupied Kherson looks suspicious. In reality, basement mosquitoes can transmit the disease all year round, and dirofilariasis itself is not a serious disease. That is, this infection is completely unsuitable for use as a weapon.
As you can see, nothing has changed since then. The new "evidence" of biological weapons in Ukraine by the Russian Defense Ministry was no better than the previous ones.
By the way, Russia has called a meeting of the UN Security Council on June 29 to discuss the supply of weapons to Ukraine. So we are waiting for Nebenzi's new stand-up. In addition to insects, he can now accuse the West of supplying Ukraine with "combat locusts," birds, rodents, and other game in every sense.
Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security
