Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 02/03/2022
Nenad Okanovic is a popular actor. In recent days, he has undoubtedly been in the public spotlight, not only in Serbia and not of his own free will. The reason: the invasion of the Russian Federation on Ukraine is followed daily by many disinformation and fake news, whether created in the media or on social networks.
Nenad Okanovic is a popular actor. In recent days, he has undoubtedly been in the public spotlight, not only in Serbia and not of his own free will. The reason: the invasion of the Russian Federation on Ukraine is followed daily by many disinformation and fake news, whether created in the media or on social networks.
What is characteristic of this conflict is that it is accompanied by constant accusations against the Western media and individuals and groups from Ukraine claiming to spread fake news about Russia.
Such accusations are often, in fact, fake news.
This is also the case with the announcement that is spreading fast on the Internet, and in which Okanovic is presented as a Ukrainian soldier who blew up a bridge and himself. This post is presented on Facebook as Ukrainian propaganda.
“Son Dragan” from the series Selo Gori a baba se ceslja by the author Rados Bajic, became “a hero of the Ukrainian army, who heroically laid down his life in defense of the homeland of Ukraine” and is now called Oleksej Stepanenko Okanovic”, stated the “explanation”.
At one point, Okanovic was published on a Twitter account TheUkrainehouse.
However, this is not the original tweet that presented him as “the soldier Okanovic”.
Such a statement, along with the text in English, “This is a Ukrainian soldier who destroyed the bridge in Kharkiv and died as a hero. His name is Oleski Stepanenko Okanovic “, can be found on the Twitter account of SerMilan, where, if you look at other content on that account, it was obviously placed as satirical.
Numerous users of social networks (here, here, here…) and some media quickly announced that this is not a Ukrainian soldier but a Serbian actor Nenad Okanovic (which is obvious in the photo).
The photo of Okanovic was taken from the archives of RAS Serbia/author Vesna Lalic.
Okanovic himself spoke out about the fake announcement.
“I do not know what to tell you. I saw that I got 1000 messages this morning. It’s really scary. In any case, it is pointless, it is terrible what are the social networks doing”, he told the website 24sedam.rs.
However, when we look at the announcement on SerMilan’s account, we see that it was released on February 28, 2022, at 9:09. According to Google records, it was published on TheUkraineHouse’s account on March 1st. The tweet, meanwhile, has been deleted from this account.
SerMilan also shared the following tweet: “Hey stupid Westerners are still sharing the war hero Stepanenko Okanovic”.
The real news about the Ukrainian soldier, Vitaly Volodomirovich, who blew up the bridge, has traveled the world before.
So, the news about “Oleksej Okanovic” did not originate in Ukraine, but a funny photo, which originated from this area, reached a Ukrainian Twitter account, which in the meantime deleted the post, and the post did not aim to spread untruths.
That is why we evaluate the post on Facebook as fake news.
The “fake news” rating is given to the original media report (entirely produced by the media that published it) that contains factually incorrect claims or information. Content that is assessed as fake news could have been created and disseminated to misinform the public, that is, to present a claim that is entirely false as fact.
