As in the case of Valery Zaluzhny, the incident with the disappearance of Budanov ended in a complete fiasco for Russian propaganda.
The reason for the ‘disappearance trick’ of Ukrainian intelligence chief Kirill Budanov was the May 29 Russian rocket attack on Kyiv.
Rocket fragments damaged the wall of the building of the Main Intelligence Directorate. After that, Kirill Budanov disappeared from the media space. No statements followed. Two weeks later, information was thrown into the Russian information that allegedly Kirill Budanov received a head injury and was urgently taken to a clinic in Germany.
For the next two weeks, the Russian media repeated the mantra ‘Budanov suffered a head injury and died in hospital’.
And when the hysteria spread its metastases to all social networks, Kirill Budanov appeared alive and healthy in front of the public in a photograph with the Japanese delegation.
At the same time, Budanov has a short haircut and is uncommonly shaved, which of course caused a lot of rumors: why does Budanov have a short haircut, why is he dressed so strangely, maybe he cannot stand on his own?
And when the Russian media began to discuss this, Kirill Budanov appeared live on Ukrainian TV and exposed these speculations.
This precedent even allows us to imagine a scheme of disinformation for the Russian media:
There is no doubt that a similar disinformation scheme will be used again with a similar result.
And the point is not even mockery of Russian propaganda, but the fact that disinformation is ultimately received by Russian citizens who are accustomed to trusting Russian media.
This is sad. Very sad.
