IMI director believes the Air Forces unjustly blamed the journalists for the "Kinzhal" scandal
The Institute of Mass Information director, Oksana Romaniuk, believes that the Air Force unjustly blamed the journalists for the disclosure of information regarding the ballistic missile "Kinzhal" having been shot down. She said this in a comment to "Detector Media".
"Journalists are not the managers of information. The manager of information, obviously, is some civil servant, who leaked it to the media, pursuing some goal of their own and hardly wanting to harm Ukraine. According to Ukrainian legislation, the responsibility for disclosing information lies with its manager, i.e. the civil servant, as it is their duty by law. In my opinion, publicly calling the journalists out was unnecessary, because I am sure that they had no intention to harm Ukraine, either, and this situation would better be resolved through communications," she said.
Oksana Romaniuk added that she had spoken to Yuriy Ihnat, the Air Force spokesman: "He explained his stance, I explained mine, and we came to an understanding. Mr. Ihnat believes that journalists are valuable and appreciates their work, and said that he will be providing comments. We agreed that we would work to improve the communication so that such situations do not arise again."
For his part, Yuriy Ihnat refused to comment on the situation publicly. Earlier, the Air Forces announced on Telegram that "There will be no comments or livestreams from the Air Force spokespeople today!" Yet, they advised the public to turn to Defense Express and the Kyiv City Military Administration for information.
As reported by IMI, on May 5, the Defense Express reported on the hypersonic Russian missile Kh-47 "Kinzhal" that had allegedly been shot down over Kyiv the previous night. The Air Force accused the media of playing along with the enemy.
The Defense Express stated that it only identified the fragments of a ballistic missile that aimed at Kyiv, and the information regarding the destruction of the ballistic missiles, probably, has already been officially reported by the Kyiv City Military Administration.
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