Ukraine war: How a school survivor became a target of Russian disinformationBy Olga Robinson and Orysia Khimiak
BBC Monitoring
After an air strike hit a school in Chernihiv, a video of a bloodied survivor went viral on Ukrainian social media. But soon her story was hijacked by pro-Kremlin accounts, including one promoted by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which falsely accused her of being a fake.
"There was no whistle, rustling or sound of shelling," Tania says. "It just hit the building and suddenly everything went dark. The building collapsed."
Tania was caught up in an air strike in early March. She was helping sort clothes for a humanitarian aid drive in school number 21 in Chernihiv, north of Kyiv, when a missile hit the building.
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Fake fact-checkersTania is one of a number of Ukrainian civilians who have been falsely accused by Russian media outlets - and even the Russian government - of somehow faking attacks.
Among the key sources spreading false claims about Tania was an account called War on Fakes, whose "debunk" of her video has so far been viewed more than 400,000 times on Telegram.
Promoted by the Russian Foreign Ministry and embassies on social media, it is a multilingual "fact-checking" project that claims to provide "unbiased information about what is happening in Ukraine".
While some of its fact-checks are genuine, it includes false information such as the allegations against Tania. And its content repeats Moscow's talking points on the war: claims that Ukraine is the aggressor, that Ukrainians are committing widespread war crimes, and that any evidence of Russian wrongdoing is fabricated.
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Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-61176372