Ukraine. General Załużny received millions of dollars “for a pension in England”? It’s a fake

After March 7, 2024, Ukrainian year Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that on that day, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky approved the candidacy of the former commander of the Ukrainian army, General Valery Zaluzhny, for the position of ambassador to Great Britain, a video allegedly produced and published online by the British BBC station began circulating on social media. From the film we learn that journalists of the well-known investigative portal Bellingcat, citing their sources, determined the circumstances of General Załużny’s resignation from the position of army commander, which took place – let us recall – on February 8. According to the film, the Ukrainian general was to reach an agreement with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and receive $53 million in compensation. He also allegedly agreed to abandon his political ambitions and leave the country. The material also includes the thesis that the nomination for Zaluzhny is a possible conspiracy of the British services, which will allow both Zelensky and Zaluzhny to maintain significant political influence “when the fall of political power [w Ukrainie] will become irreversible.”

The video lasts 100 seconds. It is with English subtitles. It resembles short materials posted by the BBC on Facebook. In the upper left corner you can see the station’s logo, at the end the so-called rear: a standard board with the words “BBC News” and an encouragement to download the BBC mobile application. The material used, among others, recordings with General Załużny, President Zelensky, there is also a frame of counting a huge sum of money. There are stacks of American hundred-dollar bills on the table.

As we have checked, videos on the Internet are published by Internet users who comment on them on the X platform (formerly Twitter), including: in Russian, English, Spanish, French, Czech. And these profiles usually publish materials consistent with the Russian narrative.

The recording was described as authentic by, for example, the website Pravda-en.com. It also appeared on the forum Reddit.com. In Poland, it was published on March 9 Piotr Panasiuka former candidate for an MP from the Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość Electoral Committee, who had previously posted false information on his account pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian content. The alleged BBC film commented: “Bellingcat: Zaluzhny received $53 million in compensation for abandoning political ambitions. This is how Zelensky paid Zaluzhny. Not only was Zaluzhny sent to England for a ‘well-deserved retirement’, but also a good bonus was paid so that he could leave Ukraine peacefully “.

There are anti-Ukrainian comments in Polish under this post: “It’s not strange that the budget is not tight with such salaries in the country during the war and people are begging all over the world”; “He sent 500,000 people to slaughter in exchange for $50 million. Not a bad deal for a Bandera supporter”; “Where do they get so much money?”; “One of the main butchers of Ukrainians calmly leaves the country with a stuffed wallet. Ukrainians are a truly ignorant nation”; “This is a comfortable retirement for him. The regime is falling apart – the deserving can now go abroad with their millions” (original spelling of all posts).

In February 2024, President Zelensky explained that the army needed immediate changes. General Oleksandr Syrski became the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army. The hugely popular 50-year-old Zaluzhny, a general of the land forces, has been the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since 2021. He has effectively led the country’s defense since the first days of the Russian invasion in February 2022. There was speculation about his resignation for several weeks. According to some estimates, Zelensky was afraid of Zaluzhny’s political ambitions.

However, the British broadcaster has nothing to do with the creation of the recording now popular on the Internet. We couldn’t find it on the BBC website or on any of the station’s social media profiles. “The BBC did not publish such material. It’s a complete fake,” Shayan replied to a question from Konkret24 Sardarizadeh from the fact-checking editorial office of BBC Verify. Then this commented on the X platform. “Another fake video attributed to BBC News and Bellingcat is shared by pro-Kremlin Internet users – he informed (editor’s translation).

He also reacted to the material circulating on the Internet Elliot Higgins, head of Bellingcat. “Another fabricated BBC material about Bellingcat has appeared. I really wonder who it is aimed at. None of it attracts attention, even among rabidly anti-Russian circles,” he wrote on the X platform (editor’s translation). He also reacted to published posts with this recording and Internet users’ questions about its authenticity. “It’s a fake. We have never published material on this topic” – he replied Panasiuk (editor’s translation).

Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian journalist who appears in the frame in the distributed material when it comes to the alleged findings of Bellingcat experts, and has not been cooperating with this portal for over a year. But he also commented on the video. “Russian intelligence continues to produce cheap fakes (as opposed to deepfakes) designed to look like they were made by credible media. This time it’s a poorly written ‘BBC’ video in Kremlin language claiming to have discovered that Zaluzhny he got a bribe. I don’t know who it’s intended for. It’s so bad,” wrote a Bulgarian journalist (editor’s translation).

This is not the first time that fabricated BBC materials have appeared online. For example, in the spring of 2022, the British station was to report that Poland was preparing its army to invade Ukraine – which we verified in Konkret24.

We sent questions to the Ukrainian embassy in Poland and the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking them to respond to the claim that General Załuzhny received some money in exchange for accepting the position of ambassador to Great Britain, but we had not received a response by the time the text was published.