Spokesperson for Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces Pletenchuk resigns, citing planned departure

Dmytro Pletenchuk's secondment to the Southern Defense Forces as the head of the Center for Strategic Communications and the group's spokesman has ended, he said on Facebook.

Pletenchuk claims that this was planned from the beginning.

"Please do not look for any double meanings or 'traitors'. I have fulfilled my function as a 'crisis manager'," he noted.

Now he returns to the duties of the spokesman of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

As the spokesperson of the Southern Defense Forces, Pletenchuk took part in 177 broadcasts, 15 briefings and 19 interviews.

Pletenchuk was appointed head of the press center of the Southern Defense Forces on April 22 where he replaced Natalia Humeniuk in this position, whose dismissal was demanded by Ukrainian journalists and experts of media organizations.

Humeniuk has now been transferred to a position unrelated to interaction with the mass media.