Russian Telegram channels claim that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in his congratulations on the Day of Defenders of Ukraine that this day is a holiday, in particular, of the invincible defenders of the Vuhledar fortress, who will soon march defeated Moscow. However, a few hours after the greeting was published, Vuhledar was finally taken by Russian troops, and therefore Syrskyi allegedly had to edit the message. As “proof” of this, the propagandists add screenshots of both the original and edited message.

In fact, Syrskyi did not edit his congratulations on the Day of Defenders of Ukraine. This is reported in the VoxCheck project.

The message in question appeared on the Facebook page of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on October 1, 2024, at 8 a.m. Kyiv time. The paragraph that the propagandists are writing about says: “This is a holiday for those who will go through all the hardships of war and battles. This is a holiday for those who will march in the parade of our Ukrainian Victory”. There was no mention of Vuhledar in it. On the morning of October 1, a number of Ukrainian media outlets distributed congratulations from Syrskyi, and the text of the message was the same everywhere - not a single one mentioned Vuhledar or the fact that the Victory Parade would take place in Moscow.

In addition, it would be noticeable on Facebook if the message was edited. In this case, when you click on the three dots in the upper right corner of the publication, the option “View history of changes” appears. Some of Syrskyi's messages were indeed edited after publication, however, no changes were made to the congratulations on Defenders' Day. Accordingly, the option “View history of changes” is not displayed.

Earlier we wrote about the Russians' lies, saying that two of Syrskyi's advisers were fired for uploading confidential documents to ChatGPT.