Pro-Kremlin resources are disseminating information that a few days after the promulgation of the decree of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi on the resignation of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine allegedly sent an encrypted signal “to action”. In a photo distributed online, Zaluzhnyi allegedly depicted the letter “Z” with the index and middle fingers of both hands, which is a symbol of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.

In fact, this information is not true. This is written about in the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. To create this fake, Russian propagandists manipulated the original photograph. On the social networks of the President of Ukraine on February 8, 2024, the day of Zaluzhnyi’s resignation, a photograph of a handshake between Zelenskyi and the now former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was published. This photo was what the Russians took as the basis for creating a fake one.

By distributing the edited photo, the Russians tried to mislead the Ukrainians. They say that General Zaluzhnyi either despaired of Ukraine’s victory, or was “offended” by Zelenskyi for being fired, so he decided to openly support Russian aggression. However, Zaluzhnyi’s “mysterious sign” is nothing more than a fiction of Russian propaganda. We previously reported that unknown persons created websites called “Zaluzhnyi 2024”, however, these resources are not actually associated with General Zaluzhnyi, and Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have already been informed of their existence.