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Zaw Min Tun (general)

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Former Burmese army major general and senior government spokesperson
In this Burmese name, the given name is Zaw Min Tun. There is no family name.

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His Excellency
Pyidaungsu Sithu Thingaha (Sithu)[1]
Zaw Min Tun
ဇော်မင်းထွန်း
Zaw Min Tun at a Tatmadaw True News Information Team press conference in January 2019
Deputy Minister of Information of Myanmar
In office
7 February 2021 – 27 March 2026
Appointed byNational Defence and Security Council
PresidentMin Aung Hlaing (acting)
Myint Swe
Prime MinisterNyo Saw
Min Aung Hlaing
Preceded byAung Hla Tun
Head of the Press Team of the State Administration Council
In office
5 February 2021 – 31 July 2025[2]
LeaderSenior General Min Aung Hlaing
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Chief of the Tatmadaw True News Information Team
In office
5 February 2021 – 27 March 2026
Preceded byMajor General Soe Naing Oo
Director of Public Relations and Psychological Warfare of the Myanmar Army
In office
February 2021 – 27 March 2026
Preceded byMajor General Tun Tun Nyi
Succeeded byBrigadier General Ye Yint Aung[3]
Information Team Leader of the National Defence and Security Council
In office
3 September 2025 – 27 March 2026
LeaderSenior General Min Aung Hlaing
Preceded byPosition established
Personal details
Born
Yenanchaung, Magway Region, Myanmar (Burma)
CitizenshipMyanmar
SpouseThin Thin Aung
ChildrenThar Htet Htun
Alma materDefence Services Academy (37th intake)
OccupationArmy general, senior spokesperson, government minister
Awards
Pyidaungsu Sithu Thingaha (Sithu)[4]

WebsiteMinistry of Information (Myanmar)
Military service
Allegiance Tatmadaw
Branch/service Myanmar Army
Years of service
1990–2026
Rank Major General
Battles/wars

Zaw Min Tun[a] (born in Yenangyaung, Magway Region, Myanmar) is a Burmese army general and government official and he has served as a senior spokesperson for the Myanmar Army.[5][6] He has served as Deputy Minister of Information of Myanmar since 7 February 2021 and as Information Team Leader of the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) since 3 September 2025, until his removal from all office positions on 27 March 2026 following an investigation by military leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.[7][8] When the Myanmar military took power in a 2021 coup d'état, Zaw Min Tun became active in official government communications where he regularly appears on public and news conferences. In his official positions, he provides updates and information to local and international media to convey state policies and rules.

He has held many military communications roles, including Director of Public Relations and Psychological Warfare of the Myanmar Army since February 2021, Head of the Press Team of the State Administration Council, and Chief of the Tatmadaw True News Information Team since 5 February 2021. He was officially stripped off from all of his duties and positions on 27 March 2026 and he was replaced by Brigadier General Ye Yint Aung. Zaw Min Tun's sudden purge of all of his positions has been associated with his handling of the military chief Min Aung Hlaing's emergency spinal health injury, fuel related issues caused by the Iran-American-Israel war in the Middle East, and for his involvement in procuring restricted Chinese drones.[9][10][11]

Early life and education

Zaw Min Tun was born in Yenangyaung, Magway Region, Myanmar.[12][13] He attended the Defence Services Academy (DSA) and he graduated as part of the 37th intake. Among his classmates was Zaw Htay, who later served as a spokesperson for both the Presidential Office under Thein Sein and the National League for Democracy (NLD) government.[14][15]

Zaw Min Tun at a Tatmadaw True News Information Team meeting on 23 February 2019

Military career

Zaw Min Tun at a Tatmadaw True News Information Team press briefing on 26 January 2021

Zaw Min Tun started his military career after graduating from the Defence Services Academy as part of the 37th intake. He became a spokesperson for the Tatmadaw and represents the military in public and press news conferences.[16][17][18]

He enlisted in the Tatmadaw True News Information Team in 2018 when it was established. Serving along his military career, he began to gain experience in public messaging and media coordination.[19][20]

On 5 February 2021, he was appointed head of the information team, and he succeeded Major General Soe Naing Oo. In the Tatmadaw True News Information Team, Zaw Min Tun worked alongside Major General Soe Naing Oo and Major General Tun Tun Nyi, and regularly holds press briefings, conferences, and meetings to provide updates, respond to inquiries, and clarify official positions to the media and the public.[21][22]

When the 2021 coup d'état enfolded in Myanmar, Zaw Min Tun was appointed as Deputy Minister of Information of Myanmar on 7 February 2021. He succeeded Aung Hla Tun and continues to hold this position.

He was also appointed as Head of the Press Team of the State Administration Council on 5 February 2021 until the council was dissolved on 31 July 2025 and replaced by the newly established State Security and Peace Commission.

On 3 September 2025, he was appointed as Information Team Leader of the National Defence and Security Council. In all of these positions, Zaw Min Tun manages official communications, public statements, and media engagements for the council under Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Prime Minister Nyo Saw.[23][24]

Zaw Min Tun also served as Director of Public Relations and Psychological Warfare of the Myanmar Army from February 2021, and he succeeded Major General Tun Tun Nyi as the chief.[25][26] He was serving in this position—until on 27 March 2026, he was removed and purged from the position due to his handling of the Commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing's health spinal injury reporting. As reported in news media, he was replaced with Brigadier General Ye Yint Aung, who served as deputy director of the army director division.[27][28][29]

Zaw Min Tun was absent from the 81st Myanmar Armed Forces Day parade on 27 March 2026 and related pre-ceremony events.[30] His resignation is said to be linked to an upcoming cabinet reshuffle in April 2026, in which he is expected to be appointed Minister of Information of Myanmar or as the spokesperson of the President Office of Myanmar. He was promoted from brigadier general to major general in 2020.[31][32]

Zaw Min Tun's removal from all of his duties and positions have been officially reported by the Irrawaddy— that China was behind the purge of his office positions, for his involvement in procuring restricted Chinese drones which was flagged by Beijing.

Chinese special envoy Deng Xijun during his official visit to Naypyidaw on 13 March 2026, provided information and evidence that Zaw Min Tun brokered the sales of Chinese drones to a company in Myanmar, even though Beijing openly announces to restrict their purchases outside of China.

Myanmar's military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing immediately went onto launching an investigation into Zaw Min Tun's case, in which he admitted to earning a brokerage fee of around US$20,000 for the drone deal.

His confession to this case led to his immediate dismissal and removal from all duties, as Deputy Minister of Information of Myanmar, Director of Public Relations and Psychological Warfare of the Myanmar Army, information chief of the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) and as military spokesperson. He was replaced with Brigadier General Ye Yint Aung, who previously served as deputy chief of the psychological warfare division.

Zaw Min Tun became the latest senior high-ranking Burmese army general and officer to be excluded from all official positions and duties.[33][34]

Since his removal from all office positions, Zaw Min Tun has not appeared in the public, including his absence in the Myanmar Armed Forces Day parade on 27 March 2026—the same date that he was removed and replaced with Brigadier General Ye Yint Aung as director. From speculations, a range of it formed from the fact that the military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing was dissatisfied with his reporting of the recent emergency spinal surgery ranging to the fuel crisis and corruption cases following his wife Daw Kyu Kyu Hla.

The Irrawaddy also reported on the fact that his fall came after Senior General Min Aung Hlaing had handpicked him as his new military information minister, as reward for his tireless defending of the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état carried out by the Tatmadaw—Myanmar's armed forces, after alleging of fraud election in the 2020 Myanmar general election, and arrested well-known leaders and politicians of Myanmar, such as State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the former leader of the NLD party, and the former President of Myanmar U Win Myint.[35][36]

Zaw Min Tun at a Tatmadaw True News Information Team press conference on 26 January 2021

Public communication and government roles

Zaw Min Tun remains as an important spokesperson in the Tatmadaw. He regularly mentions about the civil war in Myanmar, conflicts and war. He has represented the Tatmadaw in local and international media.

He also provides information and updates on the Tatmadaw's operations and the situation in ground.

He regularly appears on public until his position as the Director of Public Relations and Psychological Warfare of the Myanmar Army, military spokesperson, and all official roles were removed on 27 March 2026. Since then, The Irrawaddy reported that he has not appeared in public—and that he had undergone an interrogation following his involvement in procuring restricted Chinese drones.[37][38][39]

In 2024, the death of Ashin Munindabhivamsa drew public attention and widespread scrutiny. The Tatmadaw reported that the incident may have been caused by mines laid by the People's Defence Forces. On 21 June 2024, Zaw Min Tun stated that action would be taken against those responsible.

In October 2024, Zaw Min Tun's cousin, Lieutenant Colonel Thet Paing Tun, was killed by resistance forces across Myanmar after he was captured during fighting near the Lucky Men Hotel in Hpakant, Kachin State.[40][41]

Zaw Min Tun at a Tatmadaw True News Information Team press conference on 18 January 2019
Zaw Min Tun at a Tatmadaw True News Information Team special press conference on 26 January 2021
Zaw Min Tun at a Tatmadaw True News Information Team press conference on 26 January 2021

Awards and honours

On 4 January 2026, Zaw Min Tun received awards and honours of the Pyidaungsu Sithu Thingaha (Order of the Union of Burma) and the Sithu honor, two of Myanmar's highest national civilian honors, during Myanmar's Independence Day. He was given those awards in recognition of his public service and contributions in the Myanmar Army.[42][43]

Personal life and family

Zaw Min Tun is married to Thin Thin Aung, and the couple has one child, Thar Htet Htun.[44] The family generally maintains a low public profile, while they also appear at some official military and government events.

Since removal from all of his duties, he has not appeared in the public, and he was absent in major military events, such as the Myanmar Armed Forces Day parade on 27 March 2026, the same date that all of his positions were stripped off of from him. It is said that he is currently undergoing an investigation following his case.[45][46]

See also

References

  1. ^ "နေတိုး၊ ဖွေးဖွေး‌နှင့် ဝတ်မှုန်ရွှေရည်အပါအဝင် ရုပ်ရှင်သရုပ်ဆောင်များကို စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်က ဂုဏ်ထူးဆောင်ဘွဲ့ပေး". Mizzima Burmese. 3 December 2026. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  2. ^ "The Department of Homeland Security Is Undermining the US Government's Longstanding Policy on Myanmar". EarthRights International. 26 November 2025. Retrieved 30 November 2025.
  3. ^ "ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ဇော်မင်းထွန်းကို တာဝန်က အနားပေး".
  4. ^ "နေတိုး၊ ဖွေးဖွေး‌နှင့် ဝတ်မှုန်ရွှေရည်အပါအဝင် ရုပ်ရှင်သရုပ်ဆောင်များကို စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်က ဂုဏ်ထူးဆောင်ဘွဲ့ပေး". Mizzima Burmese. 3 December 2026. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
  5. ^ "Union Ministers and Deputy Ministers". www.moi.gov.mm.
  6. ^ "This is not a coup", said Major General Zaw Min Tun from a gilded hall in Myanmar's purpose-built capital Naypyidaw, the city where his comrades recently ousted an elected government, detained the country's leadership, and installed a military junta". The ASEAN Post. 9 April 2021.
  7. ^ "Detained Myanmar president, state counsellor to be treated in line with law: military". Xinhua. 16 February 2021. Archived from the original on 17 February 2021.
  8. ^ "Exclusive Interview with Major General Zaw Min Tun, Spokeperson of SAC". NP News. 14 March 2022.
  9. ^ "ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ဇော်မင်းထွန်းကို တာဝန်က အနားပေး". DVB Burmese. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  10. ^ Agency, Yangon Khit Thit News (28 March 2026). "စစ်တပ် နှင့် မင်းအောင်လှိုင်၏ ပြန်ကြားရေး ဇော်မင်းထွန်း ပြည်သူ့ဆက်ဆံရေးနှင့် စိတ်ဓာတ်စစ်ဆင်ရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့ ၏ ညွှန်ကြားရေးမှူးရာထူးမှ အနားပေးခံရပြီး ပြန်ကြားရေးဒုဝန်ကြီးအဖြစ် ဆက်ရှိသော်လည်း ရုံးနှင့်အခမ်းအနားများတွင် မတွေ့ရဟုဆို". Khit Thit Media. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  11. ^ Irrawaddy, The (10 April 2026). "How China Contributed to Junta Propagandist's Downfall; Beijing Embraces New Regime in Myanmar; and More". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  12. ^ "Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi is moved to house arrest due to extreme heat. A spokesperson for the Myanmar military that ousted democratically elected Suu Kyi, 78, in a coup in 2021 said it was protecting her and other older prisoners from heatstroke". NBC News. 16 April 2024.
  13. ^ Grant Peck (8 December 2023). "Myanmar's army is facing battlefield challenges and grants amnesty to troops jailed for being AWOL". AP News.
  14. ^ Agency, Yangon Khit Thit News (28 March 2026). "စစ်တပ် နှင့် မင်းအောင်လှိုင်၏ ပြန်ကြားရေး ဇော်မင်းထွန်း ပြည်သူ့ဆက်ဆံရေးနှင့် စိတ်ဓာတ်စစ်ဆင်ရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့ ၏ ညွှန်ကြားရေးမှူးရာထူးမှ အနားပေးခံရပြီး ပြန်ကြားရေးဒုဝန်ကြီးအဖြစ် ဆက်ရှိသော်လည်း ရုံးနှင့်အခမ်းအနားများတွင် မတွေ့ရဟုဆို". Khit Thit Media. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  15. ^ "State Administration Council Information Team Leader Major General Zaw Min Tun Provides Updates on Ongoing Armed Conflicts and Measures Taken by the Tatmadaw". Myanmar National Portal. 21 November 2023.
  16. ^ Agency, Yangon Khit Thit News (28 March 2026). "စစ်တပ် နှင့် မင်းအောင်လှိုင်၏ ပြန်ကြားရေး ဇော်မင်းထွန်း ပြည်သူ့ဆက်ဆံရေးနှင့် စိတ်ဓာတ်စစ်ဆင်ရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့ ၏ ညွှန်ကြားရေးမှူးရာထူးမှ အနားပေးခံရပြီး ပြန်ကြားရေးဒုဝန်ကြီးအဖြစ် ဆက်ရှိသော်လည်း ရုံးနှင့်အခမ်းအနားများတွင် မတွေ့ရဟုဆို". Khit Thit Media. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  17. ^ "'We Didn't Put Restrictions on Everything,' Says Myanmar Junta Spokesman in 1st Remarks Since Coup". Radio Free Asia.
  18. ^ "Myanmar's army defends crackdown, vows to stop 'anarchy'". Thai PBS World. 23 March 2021.
  19. ^ "Zaw Min". OpenSanctions.org. 16 July 1949. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  20. ^ "Beyond the Coup in Myanmar: The Other De-Platforming We Should Have Been Talking About". International Human Rights Clinic. 13 May 2021. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  21. ^ "Tatmadaw: 'This Is Not A Coup'". The ASEAN Post. 29 December 2016. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  22. ^ "Court martial for Rohingya slaughters?". The ASEAN Post. 29 December 2016. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  23. ^ "Zaw Min Tun". OpenSanctions.org. 20 July 2001. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  24. ^ "Maj-Gen Zaw Min Tun Leader of Information Team of the State Administration Council". Myanmar Transparency News. 29 March 2025.
  25. ^ "Russian Public Council Chairman meets Myanmar PR Director - Global New Light Of Myanmar". Global New Light Of Myanmar. 28 March 2025. Archived from the original on 20 September 2025. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  26. ^ Rojo, Magdalena. "With four journalists in prison, Democratic Voice of Burma keeps reporting on Myanmar coup". FairPlanet. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  27. ^ Now, Arakan (28 March 2026). "Media reports: Myanmar junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun removed from post". Arakan Now. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  28. ^ Irrawaddy, The (10 April 2026). "How China Contributed to Junta Propagandist's Downfall; Beijing Embraces New Regime in Myanmar; and More". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  29. ^ Irrawaddy, The (8 April 2026). "Chinese Drone Deal Behind Downfall of Myanmar Junta's Chief Propagandist". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  30. ^ Irrawaddy, The (10 April 2026). "How China Contributed to Junta Propagandist's Downfall; Beijing Embraces New Regime in Myanmar; and More". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  31. ^ Agency, Yangon Khit Thit News (28 March 2026). "စစ်တပ် နှင့် မင်းအောင်လှိုင်၏ ပြန်ကြားရေး ဇော်မင်းထွန်း ပြည်သူ့ဆက်ဆံရေးနှင့် စိတ်ဓာတ်စစ်ဆင်ရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့ ၏ ညွှန်ကြားရေးမှူးရာထူးမှ အနားပေးခံရပြီး ပြန်ကြားရေးဒုဝန်ကြီးအဖြစ် ဆက်ရှိသော်လည်း ရုံးနှင့်အခမ်းအနားများတွင် မတွေ့ရဟုဆို". Khit Thit Media. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  32. ^ "စစ်ကော်မရှင် ပြောရေးဆိုခွင့်ရှိသူ ဗိုလ်ချုပ် ဇော်မင်းထွန်းကို တာဝန်မှ ဖယ်ရှားထားပြီး စစ်ဆေးမှုလုပ်နေဟု သတင်းထွက် - New Day Myanmar". 27 March 2026. Retrieved 30 March 2026.
  33. ^ Irrawaddy, The (8 April 2026). "Chinese Drone Deal Behind Downfall of Myanmar Junta's Chief Propagandist". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  34. ^ Irrawaddy, The (10 April 2026). "How China Contributed to Junta Propagandist's Downfall; Beijing Embraces New Regime in Myanmar; and More". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  35. ^ Irrawaddy, The (8 April 2026). "Chinese Drone Deal Behind Downfall of Myanmar Junta's Chief Propagandist". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  36. ^ Irrawaddy, The (10 April 2026). "How China Contributed to Junta Propagandist's Downfall; Beijing Embraces New Regime in Myanmar; and More". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  37. ^ "Myanmar arrests hundreds under new election law ahead of December vote". The Star. 19 December 2025.
  38. ^ "Myanmar elections unlikely to see credible outcome, EU human rights rep says". Reuters. 16 October 2025.
  39. ^ Irrawaddy, The (10 April 2026). "How China Contributed to Junta Propagandist's Downfall; Beijing Embraces New Regime in Myanmar; and More". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  40. ^ "ဝင်းနိမ္မိတာရုံ ဆရာတော်ကြီးကို စစ်တပ်က ပစ်ခတ်တာဖြစ်၊ မိုးပေါ်ထောင်ပစ်ခတ်တားဆီးခဲ့ဟု ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ဇော်မင်းထွန်းပြော". DVB Burmese. Retrieved 1 April 2026.
  41. ^ "ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ဇော်မင်းထွန်း၏ တူတော်စပ်သူ ဒု-ဗိုလ်မှူးကြီး သက်ပိုင်ထွန်းကို အရှင် ဖမ်းဆီးပြီးနောက် သတ်ဖြတ်ခဲ့ကြောင်း စစ်သွေးကြွ KIA/PDF အောင်ပွဲခံ (KIA/PDF militants celebrate victory after capturing and killing Lieutenant Colonel Thet Paing Tun, nephew of General Zaw Min Tun.)". People Media.
  42. ^ "နေတိုး၊ ဖွေးဖွေး‌နှင့် ဝတ်မှုန်ရွှေရည်အပါအဝင် ရုပ်ရှင်သရုပ်ဆောင်များကို စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်က ဂုဏ်ထူးဆောင်ဘွဲ့ပေး". Mizzima News. 4 January 2026.
  43. ^ "Myanmar military leader confers honorary titles on prominent film stars during Independence Day celebrations". Mizzima News. 5 January 2026.
  44. ^ "ဥပ္ပါတသန္တိစေတီတော်၌ ဗုဒ္ဓမြတ်စွယ်တော်ပူးလာ ရဟန်းရှင်လူပြည်သူများဖြင့်စည်ကားလျက်ရှိ" (PDF). မြန်မာ့အလင်း (in Burmese). 18 November 2011. p. 9.
  45. ^ Irrawaddy, The (8 April 2026). "Chinese Drone Deal Behind Downfall of Myanmar Junta's Chief Propagandist". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
  46. ^ Irrawaddy, The (10 April 2026). "How China Contributed to Junta Propagandist's Downfall; Beijing Embraces New Regime in Myanmar; and More". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 11 April 2026.
<tbody> </tbody>
Military offices


Preceded by
Major General Tun Tun Nyi
 Director of Public Relations and Psychological Warfare of the Myanmar Army
February 2021–27 March 2026 		Succeeded by
Brigadier General Ye Yint Aung
Preceded by
Major General Soe Naing Oo
 Chief of the Tatmadaw True News Information Team
February 2021–27 March 2026 		Office abolished
Political offices
Preceded by Deputy Minister of Information of Myanmar
7 February 2021–27 March 2026 		Succeeded by
Brigadier General Ye Yint Aung
Preceded by
Position established
 Head of the Press Team of the State Administration Council
5 February 2021–31 July 2025 		Succeeded by
Position abolished
Preceded by
Position established
 Information Team Leader of the National Defence and Security Council
3 September 2025–27 March 2026 		Succeeded by
Brigadier General Ye Yint Aung

Notes

  1. ^ Burmese: ဇော်မင်းထွန်း, pronounced [zɔ̀ mɪ́ɰ̃ tʰʊ̀ɴ]
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