Russia’s vast propaganda machine has once again been put to work in an attempt to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the world, this time with a clip purporting to show Kyiv’s soldiers abusing a poor mother and her child.
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At first glance the video is absolutely damning – a woman and her baby traveling in a car along a country road.
They are stopped and pulled over by a vehicle marked with a Ukrainian flag. Two Ukrainian soldiers get out and start insulting the Russian-speaking woman, calling her a “scumbag” and “swine” as she begs to be spoken to with respect.
Undeterred the mean shout: “Give me your papers, you bastard. First of all, use the official language [Ukrainian] when speaking to me, you pig.
“Don’t use the pigs’ language [Russian] with me. I won’t look at the child. You, scumb, are you stupid?”
How did the video become widely viewed?
Courtesy of the Russian Embassy in the UK which tweeted it with the hugely ironic hashtag #TruthonUkraine.
🇺🇦military stop a woman with her baby for allegedly violating traffic rules. After hearing her speak Russian & finding out she is a Muslim, the "brave" Ukrainian: shouts at, threatens, insults her, calls her "pig", scares her baby, fires several shots. #TruthonUkraine @mfa_russia pic.twitter.com/2Gnp5dsVpd
— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) March 27, 2023
The accusations escalated when Russia’s Ministry of Foreign affairs got in on the actions, tweeting the video with the caption: “Once a Nazi always a Nazi 👇 This is the kind of terror Ukrainians are living with: witness Ukrainian military berate and shoot at a mother with a child in the backseat, calling her "pig" & "scum" simply for ... speaking Russian. No Nazis, they say...”
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The Ministry since appears to have realised it’s rather massive error and has deleted the tweet but the internet never forgets and a cached version is available here.
How do we know it’s fake?
This is all down to the wonderful work of open-source intelligence (OSINT) researchers who, by accepting nothing on face value, examined the surroundings captured on the film and …
00:00, still in the first second:
— GeoConfirmed (@GeoConfirmed) March 27, 2023
Between the trees, we see another electricity pylon. This time perpendicular to the road. On maps the type of the pylon at this crossroad is not that visible, but the two pylons to the left and right confirm. This is an exact match.
4/13 pic.twitter.com/3o6KT6CsHV
... managed to geo-locate the location to a road 30 kilometers behind the frontline – in Russian-held territory.
Location:
— GeoConfirmed (@GeoConfirmed) March 27, 2023
47.977044, 37.953754
XXG3+RG6 Makiivka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine
11/13 pic.twitter.com/3lbQUNMJF5
The geo-location of the site has since been confirmed by other researchers.
Just to be sure, is there any other proof the video is fake?
Firstly, there’s the fact dashcams have been illegal in Ukraine since the introduction of martial law.
Don’t fall for propaganda - the place where this video was made is an a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine. Also, dashcams are illegal in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/MjmS96HqVv
— Euan MacDonald (@Euan_MacDonald) March 27, 2023
Secondly, the uniforms worn by the “soldiers” don’t seem right.
4/ The soldiers in the video are wearing yellow armbands, which is an uncommon practice among Ukrainian soldiers who currently wear green armbands. This raises suspicions about the authenticity of the soldiers depicted in the video. pic.twitter.com/ry4YXo66aU
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) March 27, 2023
Thirdly, even Russian sources are now saying it’s fake.
The story takes an unexpected turn. Russian famous telegram channel, with over 300,000 subscribers, has admitted that the video is fake:
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) March 27, 2023
"The video is fake, our crooked exercise. In conducting such information operations, there is still much for us to learn and improve upon." pic.twitter.com/2uAS1A66vx
Has Russia used fakes before?
Yes, too many times to count. Perhaps most infamously, they used fakes to try and prove that the downing of MH17 was nothing to do with them.
Spoiler: It definitely was.
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