Several websites published articles about Montenegro sending “gay soldiers” to Ukraine. This was satirical content, but the websites failed to emphasize it.
On January 31, 2022, a website Region Alo, the regional edition of the Serbian tabloid, published an article entitled:
Montenegro sends GAY troops to Ukraine
The article states that Montenegro will send ten members of the army to Ukraine as part of the NATO mission. This was allegedly confirmed by Milutin Djurovic, the Chief of the General Staff of the Army of this country.
As the youngest member of the Alliance, Montenegro has selected ten soldiers who will be sent to Ukraine on a non-combat mission to defend Ukraine from potential Russian aggression.
The Chief of the General Staff of the Army of Montenegro confirmed this information for Zicer:
– We want to fully participate in all obligations and rights arising from membership. We are not a big country, and according to our capabilities, we will send 10 soldiers, three of whom are gay, which is very important to emphasize, and we are proud of that, – said Milutin Djurovic, Chief of the General Staff. (…)
An article with an identical claim but a slight difference in the title was then published by Alo online, an edition for Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as another Bosnian website Prijedor 24h, also on January 31, 2022.
What are the facts?
The article about Montenegro allegedly sending ten army members to Ukraine within the NATO mission was initially published on the website called Zicer, on January 26, 2022. Zicer is also mentioned as the source of all later transmissions of the article.
However, the website has a “Contact” section at the top of its homepage, from which it can be concluded that this is funny content.
Is everything you see in Serbia funny, and you didn’t take weed? Write to us by e-mail, it is a 99% chance that we will publish it!
At the bottom of the home page, below the logo of this website, it is also pointed out that it is a satirical portal.
Information that Zicer is a satirical website can be found in the description of the Facebook page of this website.
Since the false claim has the source in Serbia, but Bosnian media outlets picked up the story as well, both Raskrikavanje.rs and Raskrinkavanje.ba published debunking analyses on their websites. The story attracted attention in Montenegro as well, where it was also shared, after which Raskrinkavanje.me published the same debunk.
On the other hand, as Raskrikavanje states, referring to Vijesti, for now, there are no announcements that Montenegrin soldiers, as part of the NATO alliance, will be involved in a possible conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Our partner website from Montenegro, Raskrinkavanje (.me), dealt with the same topic in an analysis published on February 1, 2022.
This is, therefore, completely fabricated news published by the satirical website Zicer, which was then published by other media without any note that it was a satire, that is, funny news that is not true.
On several occasions, Raskrinkavanje wrote about the situations in which non-recognition and inadequate labeling of satire led to the creation of false news in the media. (1, 2, 3, 4)
Given the facts, we rate Alo’s article as fake news, since the fictional satirical news was shared without mentioning the type of content and thus was presented as real.
We also rate the articles of Alo online (.ba) and Prijedor 24h as distribution of fake news.
We rate Zicer’s article as satire.