Antifake / Factcheck

20 студзеня 2023

Top 5 Fake news of the week: Belarusian propaganda has missed the protests so much that it has already started making them up itself

Journalists of the TV channel "Belarus-1" passed off the protests in Bratislava in 2020 against anti-Christian measures as protests in Slovakia against support for Ukraine.

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Journalists of the TV channel "Belarus-1" passed off the protests in Bratislava in 2020 against anti-Christian measures as protests in Slovakia against support for Ukraine:

“In Slovakia there are mass protests demanding to stop arms supply to Kiev. The protesters want their government to consider the lamentable position of their own citizens. But on the top they decided to disperse the outraged people with the help of the police.”

You have just been shown an action which first: took place in Bratislava in October 2020; second: which was against anti-Covids measures. Here is a video of the Bratislava 2020 protests that we found on YouTube. It was published more than two years ago.

Although, the people of Slovakia really don't particularly support arms supplies to Ukraine, according to the latest Eurobarometer poll. But that doesn't change the fact that the workers of Belarus 1 made up this protest.

Putin uses actors in the New Year’s presidential speech

Ukrainian mass media accused Vladimir Putin of using actors as disguised soldiers during the recording of New Year’s presidential speech. One of them was identified by a facial recognition service.

The Face recognition of a boy standing to the left behind the back of the RF president. The deleted VK account page is shown. Its ID is linked to the man named Timofey ( service ROZEYE was used ).

It is worth mentioning that Timofey has a honor “Hero of Russia” on his chest, but nobody was awarded with this decoration for at least the last three years.

They decided to call the boy an actor and a scam. But it seems that he is real. 

The TV channel “Zvezda” informed of corporal Timofey Matveev who received the star “Hero of Russia” on December, 31. It means before New Year’s speech and not after this - in response to the accusations. 

Later a lot of regional mass media in the RF published more detailed articles on this tanker-paratrooper. Here he meets the public in his homeland, Jewish Autonomous Region and shares his emotions.

The guy is indeed looking like the one from the New Year’s presidential speech. The message that he is an actor turned out to be fake.

But there were more common accusations connected to a female soldier from the same recording.

The Ukrainian channel “24” found her guilty playing a fisherwoman in 2016, later noticed her behind Putin’s back in 2017 in the church. In the same year and in 2019, according to the source, she played an ice-cream seller during aviation show visited by Putin.

Even ukrainian journalist Dmitry Gordon expressed his opinion.

The woman sells him an ice-cream during the visitation. Here the same woman stays in the church behind his back, accidentally. Here she is shown among the military personnel, wearing a uniform.

All these women were blond and that gave a reason for further speculations. The ice-cream, indeed, was sold by Ekaterina Safronova. In 2019 she was a guest in NTV’s studio.

The woman that was catching a fish - her name is Larisa Serguhina. She was with Putin  during the mass in the monastery. The person is real, in different articles her real name was used. She is often put in the same frame with Putin, just because the events were taking place in Novgorod region, where she lives, does her business. She is a notable figure among the supporters of the “Edinaya Rossia” party.

During New Year’s Eve speech the third blond woman was noticed. She is a captain of medical service, Anna Sidorenko.

It is visible that these women are not the same person, they are real and their names and surnames were known long before this event.

The majority of Europeans are against sanctions

Two years ago, Deputy of the House of Representatives Oleg Gaidukevich called for criminal liability for calling for the imposition of sanctions. Now on the air of Alfa-radio he himself demands "more sanctions" because "they help the Belarusian and Russian economies to develop their own production. According to him, only Europeans suffer from the sanctions.

“If in Europe you go and ask 90 individuals, 80 of them is going to say go and fuck yourself with your sanctions, we want peace. Take your seat in the negotiation table and negotiate as quick as possible”.

It looks like the Russian authorities are also counting on Europeans' economic fatigue from expensive energy resources, judging by the commercials that the Russian state media ran before Christmas.

That is the last survey of eurobarometer, made in December. This is an official sociological tool, used by Eurocommision. They make surveys on the large scale in all EU countries. Indeed, more than a half of the respondents claim that war in Ukraine influenced their personal financial stability.Their general satisfaction with Brussel’s response to the war in Ukraine is getting lower, but it still stays rather high.Considering this, the vast majority of the EU population supports sanctions against Russia. According to the last survey, it is 71%!Of course, there are countries where these measures are supported by less than a half of the population, for example , Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus,Bulgaria, Hungary.

There are enough harbors in Belarus to cover all the exports

Deputy prime minister Nikolay Snopkov was arguing about this with journalists. 

Today  all the export of Belarus is covered with harbors. 80% of it are petroleum products and fertilizers. We have enough infrastructure to export all the amount of goods.

As we mentioned before, the majority of belarusian fertilizers was exported by harbor of Klaipeda. One year ago Lithuania terminated their transit contract on its railway, after the sanctions of the USA against “BelarusKaliy” took place. They were imposed due to the political instability.

Again, Snopkov reports that harbors are found, as a replacement for the lithuanian one. But the reaction of Lukashenko is doubtable. Is everything all right with the harbors?

Now we just need to start shipping, although we have already started shipping some of it.

Earlier, we could check the Snopkov’s claims, using the data of Belstat. But now, belarusian government made all data about the export of potash fertilizers and oil products top secret. That’s why we need to rely on the indirect evidences, they are not valid 100%. As russian experts say, Belarus has problems with the transport of potash fertilizers in russian harbors. The point is that Russia is in shortage of specialized machinery for handling mineral fertilizers. That is what the experts of portal Port News are writing.

That’s why before we were thinking that belarusian fertilizers will be handled with small portions in different russian harbors and according to the data that we have collected, this process takes place. The belorussian fertilizers are overloaded in big bags via the sea multifunctional transhipment service “Bronka”, located next to the SPB.

It is a big bag, which means it is a small batch packed in a package. Large lots are cheaper to tranship in bulk. For this operation special terminals are needed and Russia doesn’t have enough of them for their own use.

That is why Minsk claimed to have his port built in Russia. But there is still more to be done. According to the data of the biggest potash fertilizer producer, canadian Nutrien, the export in Belarus 2022 lowered on 50-60%, compared with the previous year. It seems that Mr. Snopkov is declaring the nonexistent harbor entities as reality.

Borrel offered Europeans to die for democracy

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Josep Borrell offered Europeans to die for democracy, according to the presenters of the program "Poniatnaya politika" on "Belarus-1.

“In autumn Borrel again caused a scandal. He proposed that Europeans should die for democracy. That was his answer to the complaints about the expensive utility costs. The proposal to live in cold temperature, but in liberty, was not accepted by many. However, there is no freedom. If you are putting the temperature of the room more than 18 degrees, wait for the police.”

However, the presenters were not telling us how the police could measure the temperature from a distance in the apartments. 

There was no such claim of Borrel. It was coined by an ironic telegram channel “A vot moi yandex koshelek”. In the description of the channel it is written that this is a travesty, a satire of political reality.

We found this information about 18 degrees in the feed of the channel. It was published on 18 of November in autumn. And three days later the channel was making fun at those who believed this was real. Now we can include in this list the channel “Belarus -1” .

Later Trass was in trouble because of the message “everything is done” that was sent to the Secretary of State. It cost her the premiership.

Something is wrong here. The history with the SMS “everything is done” began on October,30. The internet businessman Alex Jones wrote on his twitter that there was data that Liz Truss sent this SMS immediately after the explosion of the north stream. But she was not a prime minister of Great Britain  at that moment.

Her dismissal was announced on October, 20, 10 days before the tweet about the SMS. It didn’t affect the scandal. It was not proved that she had sent such a message.