Fake#1 Polish Defense Minister uses soldiers to build his private summer house

Fake date: 6.09.2023 

The propaganda Telegram channel Nevolfovich authors published photos on September 6, stating that there were Polish soldiers shown while working on constructing a summer house for the Minister of Defense of Poland. 

“Here are the images of Polish Army soldiers, who are treated as laborers. Polish soldiers provide all types of services, from repair work to gardening. From our perspective, all this seems to be a construction process at the summer house of one of the Polish generals.

It is clear that the head of the Polish department, M. Blaszczak, has a large family and a lot of houses. But why to abuse official powers like that?” they say in the publication.

In fact, the photographs were taken not now. Most of them were published many years ago. So, the photos of military personnel moving a log and pouring sand into bags are from 2019. These photos show Polish soldiers helping to eliminate the consequences of the hurricane.

The photo of Polish soldiers sawing a log was taken in 2020 during a territorial defense exercise. 

The following photographs of military personnel with construction carts in front of a house were taken not in Poland, but in Slovenia. In August, there had been the largest flood in the last 30 years here, so Poland has sent its soldiers to help eliminate its consequences. The official website of the Polish army published these photographs.

Fake#2 The first in Europe concentration camp was built by the Polish

Fake date: 6.09.2023

Polish concentration camp, located in the Belarusian town of Biaroza-Kartuzskaja, was the first in Europe, Alexey Avdonin, an analyst at the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, claimed on September 6 on Alfa Radio.

“The first concentration camp on the territory of Europe appeared in the area of Belarus, in the Brest region even before the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.

It was organized in Kartuz-Biaroza, or Biaroza-Kartuzskaja, the location was called differently. 

There was the very first concentration camp organized by the Pilsudski regime against political prisoners and those who waged their underground struggle and were charged in case №133,” Alexey Avdonin said.

The Biaroza-Kartuzskaja concentration camp was established in June 1934 after  Ukrainian underground fighters had killed the Polish Minister of Internal Affairs in Warsaw. At that time the very first European Nazi camp had already existed for a year in Dachau. It was established in March 1933. 

The very first European concentration camps appeared during the First World War. In 1915, the Austro-Hungarian Empire founded the first concentration camps for Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1914, they opened the internment camp at Thalerhof, not far from Graz, Austria. Those who were suspected of sympathizing with the Russian Empire were kept there.

Thus, the Biaroza-Kartuzskaja concentration camp was not the first such a place in Europe.

Fake#3 Russians got a record number of Schengen visas 

Fake date: 31.08.2023

Belarusian carriers have no problems with trips to Europe, chairman of Belarusian Professional Passenger Carriers Union Ekaterina Stankevich claimed on state-run TV ONT on August 31.

In particular, she states that Western countries frightenes by restrictions, as evidenced by the record number of Schengen visas issued to Russians. 

“Such an iron curtain, so scary to live. But… Number of visas… Russians set the record, Russians received the record number from the European Union. And Finland also started on September 1.”

It is not true. Finland accepts documents from Russians for visas only in special cases. For example, to reunite with family, obtain a residence permit, or for humanitarian reasons. There is no option for tourist and private visas.

Also, no record was set for the number of Schengen visas issued to Russians. Russians actually used to lead among all countries in the past, before the war and the pandemic. They have got 4 million visas in 2019. While in 2021 there were about 600 thousand Schengen visas. This is six times less.

Fake#4 Belarusians were going abroad for shopping only in the 90s

Fake date: 6.09.2023

Citizens' shopping trips to neighboring countries are humiliating for their authorities. Belarusians haven't used to do this for the last couple of decades, both Andrey Sych, political commentator, and presenter Victoria Popova claimed on the state-run TV channel Belarus 1 on September 6. 

“For example, there are pictures that we see on all social networks. Here are the Balts in cars with trailers that are transporting coal from Belarus. From the political PR perspective, this damages their own authorities' image, if people still choose to go shopping in another state. They humiliated our society and our government for a long time because Belarusians used to go shopping in Poland during some period,” Sych said.

“That was in the 90s”, Victoria Popova added.

In fact, Belarusians were going shopping in Poland in the 90s and still going. In 2013, our fellow citizens spent a record billion dollars in Polish stores.

To make shopping easier, Poland even issued a special shopping visa to Belarusians, which was canceled only in 2019. 

The Weekly Top Fake team learned from recent years statistics, that for Belarusians the trend to go shopping in neighboring countries remains so far, albeit on a smaller scale due to restrictions on obtaining visas.

Over the last three months of 2018, Belarusians spent more than 600 million zlotys in Poland. It is about $160 million at the exchange rate of that time.

For the same period in 2019, after the cancelation of shopping visas, slightly less than 600 million zlotys were spent, and last year — 278.6 million zlotys. 

The Poles spent tens of times less in Belarus at this time. For the last quarter of 2019 — about $6 million, for 2022 — a little more than $1 million.

Fake#5 NATO commanders hit by a 'Strange deaths epidemic'

Fake date: 28.08.2023

Western media reported several deaths of high-ranking NATO military personnel in the summer of 2023. They died not under the circumstances that were officially stated, but in Ukraine, it was reported in a story on the Russian television channel REN TV on August 28.

“There is an epidemic of strange deaths of high-ranking generals in the West, and last week there were cases of sudden deaths as well. For example, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, former Chief of the Defence Staff of the French Armed Forces <...>, fell from a cliff somewhere in the Pyrenees due to negligence <...>.

Almost at the same time, the French media outlet Le Figaro reported the death of two other high-ranking officers of the French Armed Forces. They were Nicolas Latour and Baptiste Gauchot from the 19th Engineer Regiment.

The reason is also very exotic, it is a traffic accident in Iraq. And that's not even mentioning the fact that all French forces have officially left the country back in 2020. What were they doing there in Iraq?

But what’s really interesting is the dates of the deaths of all three military personnel.  Strangely, they exactly coincide with the date of the Russian attack on the headquarters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Here is a video of a missile attack on the regional drama theater in Chernihiv.

A military council, disguised as a theater festival, was held there at that time. According to insiders, the bodies of nine foreign officers have already been found under the rubble, whose names haven’t yet been disclosed,” they said in the news plot.

In fact, the death of the ex-chief of the French Defence Staff had been reported before Russia launched a missile strike on the drama theater in Chernihiv. It happened on August 19 at 11:30 Kyiv time. The French media reported the death of General Jean-Louis Georgelin at 10 o'clock in Paris, which was half an hour before the attack on Chernihiv.

'High-ranking officer' Baptiste Gauchot turned out to be a sergeant. The newspaper Le Figaro published news about his death on the evening of August 18, 12 hours before the attack on Chernihiv. 

Warrant officer Nicolas Latour was the only one whose death became known chronologically after the Chernihiv attack, whom Ren TV also listed as a 'high-ranking officer'. He died on August 20 in Iraq.

«New intriguing details have emerged in the case of another NATO general, Anthony Potts death, who passed in July 2023 after allegedly piloting a small plane in Maryland. His death came unexpectedly on the very day Russia struck the SBU headquarters in Dnepropetrovsk,” they claimed further in the story on REN TV. 

In fact, Russia struck the Dnepropetrovsk on July 28. And Anthony Potts died three days earlier. The news of the plane crash in Maryland and the death of its pilot was covered in the media on July 25. The next day, the deceased pilot was reported to be Mr. Potts.