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Belarus State TV Portrays Polish Nightclub Party as Dance in Ukrainian Church. Original Video Revealed by WTF
The Weekly Top Fake team investigated where the disco really took place.
Ukrainians are turning Orthodox churches into nightclubs, Belarus state-run TV ONT reported. To back up these claims, they published three videos allegedly showing dancing in a church in Vinnytsia. The Weekly Top Fake team investigated where the disco really took place.
In mid-October 2024, the St. Michael's Cathedral in Cherkasy, formerly belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, was transferred to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. This led to clashes between supporters of the two churches, resulting in several injuries. Amidst these events, ONT's website published a news story on October 16, 2024, claiming Ukrainians were turning churches into nightclubs.
“In the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, a nightclub was set up in the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God 'Joy of All Who Sorrow,' a church seized from Orthodox believers by the Kyiv regime's banned UOC. Footage of this immoral and unreasonable activity is shared by Russian journalist Roman Golovanov,” the article said.
Roman Golovanov, cited by ONT, is a correspondent for both Russia's pro-government Spas TV channel and Soloviev Live. On October 12th, he posted three short videos on his Telegram channel showing people dancing to Ukrainian songs.
“The church was taken from the Orthodox. It was given to schismatics from the OCU. Nobody attends their black masses, so they turned the church into a nightclub,” the caption to the videos read.
The WTF journalists found a location with an interior similar to the one shown in the video. It's located in Poland — the Warsaw club Room 13. It has the same arches and columns, and the same letter “B” on the wall.
Journalists also traced the source of the videos Golovanov posted. The clips were published online by various club visitors back in 2019 (1, 2, 3). In the original recordings, people are dancing to different music, not Ukrainian songs.
