Ukrainian Facebook users have set a goal to compile a full list of the fake news about Ukraine that appeared in Russian media in 2014, as well as the most ludicrous rumors shared on social media.
The list is dominated by rape reports, but also features fake elections results, Nazism-inspired murders and tortures and more. Some of the reports proved to be wrong, while others had no proofs of verity and are mocked as bizarre and ludicrous, like it was with a rumor saying that Ukrainian servicemen have raped and robbed an epilepsy-suffering senior woman while she was having a seizure – a story told on Russia-1, a state-owned TV network.
Alexander Ostashko, a Ukrainian living in New York, came up with the idea to make a list of all the fake news shared in media, and called his Facebook friends to contribute to it. As of Jan. 5, it listed over 60 fake reports.
The list opens with the most famous lie – the “crucified boy” story. After Ukrainian servicemen liberated Sloviansk, a city in Donetsk Oblast, of the separatist rebels in July of 2014, a local woman told Russian biggest state-owned TV network Perviy that the soldiers have publicly nailed a three-year old local boy to a bulletin board, with his mother watching. The interview ran in the news program, watched by millions of Russians.
It wasn’t until December that the network admitted that the journalists didn’t have any proof of the crucifixion story. The network’s news anchor Irada Zeinalova assumed the story could be “a fantasy of a woman whose mind was damaged by a hell of a constant shelling.” However, the network has offered no excuses for broadcasting the unverified and hatred-inciting story.
Many other presumably fake stories have not got any retraction.
Here are some of the most noticeable fake reports that were recalled by Facebook users. Full list is available here (in Russian).
1. The crucifixion of a boy, reported by Perviy in July of 2014. The boy’s mother, according to the witness, was tied to a tank and dragged across the city’s central square.
2. The slaves for Ukrainian soldiers. In November of 2014 Perviy interviewed an unnamed citizen of Donetsk Oblast, who claimed that a soldier of Ukraine’s National Guard told him that each soldier was promised two slaves and a land lot for fighting against rebels.
3. NATO submarines in Russian rivers. In December of 2014 some social media accounts shared a message saying that the water level in rivers Lopan and Kharkiv, that run both in Ukraine and Russia, has been brought up manually, “to let NATO submarines enter Russia.”
4. Nationalist Dmytro Yarosh wins elections. On May 25, 2014, Russian Perviy Kanal showed a fake graph of the presidential elections vote count, showing nationalist leader Dmytro Yarosh winning election. In reality, Yarosh received 0.7 percent of votes.
5. Yarosh’s business card. On Apr. 20 a rebels’ post in Sloviansk was attacked by men on two cars. The attackers’ cars burned down, but LifeNews, Russian pro-government media, had still managed to find a business card belonging to the Right Sector leader Yarosh in one of the cars.
6. Protesters nailed golden eagles because of their name. When EuroMaidan protesters took over former president’s estate Mezhyhirya in February of 2014, one of the first photos of the place showed several birds of prey nailed to the posts – supposedly, the scarecrows that protected the president’s aviary. But a popular rumor said that the birds were murdered by the protesters because a golden eagle – “berkut” in Ukrainian – gave its name to the unit of Ukrainian riot police that assaulted protesters.
7. Father Frost is banned. Former Ukrainian lawmaker from Odesa Ihor Markov said on a Russian talk show in November of 2014 that Ukraine was about to ban Father Frost, an alternative of Santa Claus in post-Soviet countries, “because he is Russian.”
8. Zoophilia and “58 types of homosexuals” in Europe. A famous speech of a female activist in Crimea at a rally in October included a variety of peculiar claims. Making unclear references to Russian TV, the woman claimed that hundreds of thousands people protested in Germany, Denmark and Norway to protect their right for “zoophilic love.” She said that hundreds of zoophilic brothels legally operate in Europe, while all children are demanded to choose “which of 58 types of gays they are.” The video of her speech went viral.
9. Fake heroes with stolen photos. Polina Turchynova from Krasnodar in Russia was very surprised to find her photo attached to a news item shared in all prominent separatists’ social media groups. The post said that the girl at the photo was a 16-year old rebel from Donetsk Oblast who sacrificed herself to stop a Ukrainian tank.
10. A mass burial of women raped by soldiers. In October of 2014 Russian TV network TVC reported that some 300 female bodies were found buried in Donetsk Oblast. The report was based on the words of Aleksandr Zakharchenko, one of the rebels’ leaders, who said that the women were raped and murdered. According to him, one of Ukrainian volunteer battalions used to be located in the place of the burial.
11. Citizens of Sloviansk were replaced by actors after the city was liberated by Ukrainian army. It was claimed by Aleksander Dugin, famous Russian nationalist, through his Facebook page.
12. Russian-speaking Ukrainians can’t buy bread in Kyiv. This story was told by Russian online newspaper Vesti.ru on April 1, 2014. Even though published on the April Fools’ Day, the story was not a joke.
13. A senior lady was raped and robbed while she was having an epileptic seizure. The story was told on a talk show broadcast by Russia-1, state-owned TV network with one of the biggest audiences in Russia.
