Antifake / Factcheck

15 чэрвеня 2023

Top-5 Fake News. US CIA confirmes participation in war in Ukraine, British are outraged by Tikhanouskaya award, Prime Minister of Luxembourg insults Zelensky

Another Nazi relative of German Chancellor and undrowned animals from zoo in Nova Kakhovka. Top-5 Fake News spotted by Weekly Top Fake team.

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Fake#1 Ordinary Brits are outraged by Tikhanouskaya being presented Tipperary International Peace Award

Fake date 1.06.2023

The Tipperary International Peace Award has been presented to human rights activist and politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on May 2.

She received the award in St Mary’s Church of Ireland in recognition of her fight for democratic change in Belarus. The fact caused indignation among ordinary Britons, propaganda media Belarus 1 claimed.

“All this obscurantism would've remained just pics for reports to grant givers, just another small award. If not for one nuance. The ordinary residents of the UK and Russian-speaking users of social networks were terribly outraged by the fact,” host Maria Petrashko said on the news broadcast on June 1st.

And she cited a few comments from Twitter as an example:

“I am disappointed that our money for science, education, culture, and healthcare is being spent on laying the red carpet for some unknown woman.”

“Why are you dating her? And even more so to reward her? For what? He has done nothing, much less helped her country. As for me, this is stupid.” 

«Professor MccRith, you are a small person, explain to me as an Irish citizen why we support her and give her an award she didn’t deserve it, she didn’t do anything. You are more worthy of the award than Tikhanouskaya. She will then make a cope in our country.”

As shown, the screenshots demonstrated by Maria Petrashko were taken immediately after the publication. It took from a couple of seconds to several minutes.

Moreover, all critics of the Tikhanouskaya award created their Twitter accounts only in May 2023. They have neither followers nor subscriptions.

The comments under the tweet about awarding Sviatlana Tikhanouskaya in Ireland were the only thing they did in their short existence on Twitter.

Fake#2 Prime Minister of Luxembourg ordered Zelensky to shut up, in addition to an obscene gesture

Fake date 7.06.2023

On June 6, at EPC Moldova Summit, European leaders promised to supply Ukraine with a crucial number of F-16s fighter jets, the President of Ukraine Zelensky announced to journalists. Volodymyr Zelensky told that it was a "day of happiness" for him.

But according to Belarusian and Russian propaganda media outlets, Summit participants were disrespectful to the Ukrainian leader. So, Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel allegedly ordered Zelensky to shut up, in addition to an obscene gesture.

Here is a piece of propaganda stuff made by host Dmitry Bochkov on June 7:

«The summit of the European political community in Moldova revealed several interesting points. First, it seems that Zelensky has begun to annoy his partners.

This gesture of the Prime Minister of Luxembourg does not need much explanation.  At some point, the President of Ukraine was simply advised to shut up,” Dmitry Bochkov stated in the program "Objectively" on the ONT channel.

In the video fragment shown, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg makes a gesture with his hand, which can be interpreted as a demand for the President of Ukraine to shut up.

But in the same piece video a few seconds earlier, you can notice that Zelensky is talking to Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and the Prime Minister of Luxembourg. Another recording from a different angle shows politicians friendly to each other.

The BIC team sent a request to the Prime Minister of Luxembourg Office, asking about the sense of his gesture and to whom it was directed. Here is the official reply: 

“Thank you for the request.

Actually, the video you mentioned and the hand gesture of Prime Minister Bettel that can be seen are not directed against the President of Ukraine.

In the video, Xavier Bettel gesticulates that it is important to talk to each other, not about each other. He said dialogue is important. 

Literally, he said: That's why we're here, not to talk about each other, but to each other.”

Fake#3 The CIA indirectly acknowledges its participation in war in Ukraine

Fake date 2.06.2023

Russia has mounted an attack on the Ukrainian military intelligence headquarters, Vladimir Putin claimed on May 30. After that, a new name appeared on the CIA Memorial Wall in the United States, said Vadim Elfimov, a political observer for the Belarussian propaganda media outlet Minsk-Novosti.

According to him, there is a connection between these two events:

«Here is a memorial plaque of the Central Intelligence Agency.

There is the following information: On March 23, May, I beg your pardon, the 140th star was added to the memorial wall in the CIA, on which American intelligence officers who died in the line of duty are honored.

And such a postscript is added: it is possible that the officer died in Ukraine… This is an indirect acknowledgment that the CIA is working in Ukraine,” Vadim Elfimov claimed on the air of Radio-Minsk on June 2.

At the same time, the CIA website reports to whom the star is dedicated, and where and when this person died.

“This year, CIA added one star to the Memorial Wall, honoring Jon Evans, a medical doctor who was killed in a plane crash in Southeast Asia in 1969. This addition brings the total number of stars to 140,” US CIA reports on its website.

Fake#4 German Chancellor Scholz's father helped Hitler build atomic bomb

Fake date 2.06.2023 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, according to war propaganda, hates Russia because his father worked for the Nazis. Here is what exactly was reported by state-run Belarussian media BelTA: 

“When I look at Scholz when he shouts, the politician is insignificant, but I see his hatred for us because his grandfather was a Nazi. 

Scholz's father, few people here write about this, Scholz's father was a factory director, the owner of a factory that produced heavy water for the German atomic bomb. These people want to take revenge,” Russian historian Andrey Fursov, director of the Institute for Systemic and Strategic Analysis, claimed in the air of propaganda media on June 2.

Previous releases of the Weekly Top Fake have already proven that Scholz's grandfather was not a Nazi. The fact that his father owned a factory that prepared heavy water for the atomic bomb is also not true.

In 2021, when Scholz became Chancellor, newspapers reported that his father was 86 years old. So he was born in 1935. The same date is indicated in open sources.

The nuclear program in Nazi Germany started in 1939 and ended in 1945. Thus, according to the Russian historian, Scholz Sr. had been helping Hitler create a nuclear bomb at the age of 4 to 10 years.

Fake#5 Animals from Nova Kakhovka zoo did not drown, they were taken to Crimea in 2022

Fake date 7.06.2023

News that, due to the destruction of the dam, animals from the zoo in Nova Kakhovka died is fake. The Belarusian Telegram channel ZhS Premium has spread this message following Russian propaganda.

«Extremists again sat in a puddle. Now with fake photos from the "flooded zoo".

There are posts with some photos allegedly "from the Nova Kakhovka zoo", which "as you know, completely went under water and all 300 animals died there." "As you know," yeah.

The problem is that if an opposition opens its mouth, it always lies. And now it's the same. There is no zoo in New Kakhovka for a long time! All animals from there were taken to Crimea in December 2022,” the authors of this channel claimed on June 7.

ZhS Premium cites the post of the Russian telegram channel “War against fakes” as confirmation. There, one official from the local occupation administration said that there was no zoo in Nova Kakhovka.

ZhS Premium also refers to the news from the Russian propaganda TV channel RT under the heading “Save from shelling: the zoo from Nova Kakhovka was evacuated to Crimea.”

“The animals were rescued from the zoo corner of Nova Kakhovka and brought to Crimea. Coatis, parrots, nutrias, and Patagonian maras, as well as a crocodile found in a ditch, were taken to the Taigan Lion Park. 

The reptile used to work with a photographer and then he threw it away.

In addition, seven raccoons and two she-wolves from Kherson now live in Taigan. The director of the zoo, Oleg Zubkov, assured that specialists would go to new Russian regions more than once to save animals,” RT reported on December 20, 2022.

In fact, Oleg Zubkov took the animals in December not from Nova Kakhovka, but from Kakhovka. These are two different settlements. He himself spoke about this and also admitted that animals from the zoo in Nova Kakhovka died.

“By order of Vladimir Vasilievich Saldo, we were able to take out only animals from the station of young naturalists from Kakhovka. We had an official appeal and we were there on the banks of the River Dnipro.

We knew about the zoo in Novaya Kakhovka, and that there was a large collection of animals. But, unfortunately, we had neither the authority to export those animals nor the appeals of either the zoo management or the officials of the city administration, as well as from the military administration.

Therefore, unfortunately, all the animals there really died, we are very sorry,” Zubkov reported via his Telegram channel on June 7.