Antifake / Factcheck

29 лістапада 2023

Top-5 Fake News. Germany Learns How to Conquer Poland, while Dental Implantation is Free in Belarus

Further: Ukrainian personnel beat a schoolboy; Lithuania lost its independence & Information bombing by Arestovich. Top-5 Fake News spotted by the Weekly Top Fake team.

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Fake #1 Dental implants are free of charge in Belarus

Fake appearance date: 16.11.2023

Dental prosthetics in Belarus are free, Grigory Azarenok claimed on the air of the program “Azarenok. Napryamuyu” on November 16.

The top Belarussian propagandist voiced a viewer comment: “In Germany, two implants, teeth, are 1,500 euros. If you want, do it, or chew without teeth.” 

Then the guest of the program Ksenia Lebedeva, who is the host of the propaganda TV channel Belarus 1, suggested in response: “Come to Belarus, we have cheaper implants.”

Following her statement, Azarenok said: “Belarus — yes. So if you go to a public clinic, you can do it for free.”

In Belarus, a narrow circle of beneficiaries has free-of-charge access to dental implantation. ​​They are participants of the Great Patriotic War, disabled people, including children, also citizens of several other categories. Meanwhile, the placement of a dental implant into the gum is carried out only on a paid basis. Its cost in Belarus ranges from €550 to €800 per tooth.

Fake #2 A Ukrainian personnel beat a schoolboy for not responding to the slogan “Glory to Ukraine!”

Fake appearance date: 22.11.2023

A screenshot of a video that shows a man holding a schoolboy by the breasts was published by the ZhS Premium Telegram channel on November 22. Here's the comment on the image:

“10th anniversary of Euromaidan.” There are Ukrainian security forces performing in the schools throughout the rest of Ukraine. Major Sergei Poprotsky, head of intelligence, had a chance to communicate with high school students at one of the Lviv schools.

The personnel traditionally ended a long speech dedicated to Nenka with the Nazi slogan. But not all the children have exclaimed “heroes” in response, as he would've preferred. As a result, the major became enraged and, after a verbal altercation, attacked one of the students. They barely pulled him away. However, the victim’s friends managed to film a funny video and posted it online!”

Actually, the video was filmed not in Lviv but in Truskavets. The man in the video was a history teacher who had attacked students for throwing water at him.

A similar story happened in Belarussian city of Gomel in 2019. A video was published on the Internet showing a teacher, who threatened students to hit them with a desk and swore obscenely. The woman was fired, but she was reinstated a few days later by order of Alexander Lukashenko.

“If I were this teacher, I would turn off the head of such sort of a puppy,” Lukashenko commented on this incident that time.

Fake #3 Germany conducts military exercises to соnqure Poland

Fake appearance date: 19.11.2023

There is a military threat to Poland from Germany, Konstantin Gagarin, the presenter from the Belarussian propaganda TV channel, said on the program “Main Air” on November 19.

“In general, Warsaw expects a threat, perhaps, from the wrong side. Military Exercise Orange Road 2023-II was held in Germany. According to the legend, the Wehrmacht came to Poland to help ethnic Germans who lived there and became treated violently after allegedly deciding to organize their autonomy. And all that happened on the territory that Warsaw had gotten after the Second World War. I wonder how the Germans feel about the Poles if they create such legends for maneuvers?” Konstantin Gagarin claimed

Exercise Orange Road 2023-II took place in the southern regions of Germany, which do not border Poland. The Bundeswehr website published its scenario. According to it, there are two countries, Altraverdo and Wislania. The second claims that the first country oppresses the Wislanian minority living there, then breaks off diplomatic relations and sends troops to annex part of its regions.

According to the legend, Altraverdo is a member of NATO, that's why the German military is deployed there. The purpose of the exercise is to work out tasks to protect a country that is part of the North Atlantic Alliance, and not to attack one of its members.

Fake #4 Arestovich is preparing an information bomb

Fake appearance date: 18.11.2023

A former adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine is going to publish incriminating evidence on Volodymir Zelensky. Propagandist Olga Shpilevskaya made such a statement on the state-run TV channel  “Belarus 1” in the program “Editors Club” on November 18.

“The last statement of [Alexey] Arestovich, which I have literally just seen. Arestovich says that: A small spoiler. At the beginning of 2024, I'm going to present an information bomb that'll open your eyes to who Vladimir Alexandrovich really is,” Olga Shpilevskaya, head of the representative office in Belarus of the Russian state TV company “Mir” in Belarus, said.

The Russian Telegram channel Pool N.3 published a video with this statement on November 17. On the same day, Arestovich announced via his official Instagram account, that the mentioned above video is a deepfake, i.e. audio, image, or video created using artificial intelligence.

Fake#5 Lithuania lost its independence, but Belarus did not

Fake appearance date: 16.11.2023

Top Belarusian propagandists and head of the Belteleradiocompany Ivan Eismont spoke about the vassal status of the Baltic countries on the air of Radio Minsk on November 16.

“The example of the Baltic countries is the most terrible for me. When they practically have no economy of their own, they rejoice: one of the countries was given two billion, and Lithuania was given two and a half billion. It's great when they give you money, I guess. But you will be on the hook as soon as you stop earning money yourself and start taking money for your food and life from others. From now on, sovereignty and independence can be renounced,” Eismont said.

The Lithuanian economy is comparable to the Belarusian one. The 2022 GDP of both Lithuania and Belarus was $70 and $73 billion, respectively. In 2022, Belarus exported goods worth $37.6 billion, Lithuania — €44.3 billion.

Belarus receives multi-billion dollar subsidies from Russia. According to the Kremlin, for the period 2011—2015, its total amounted to about $22.3 billion. In 2023, “gratuitous receipts from foreign states” in favor of Belarus were about 5.5 billion rubles. This is nearly 15% of the country's budget.