Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 29/03/2022
Russia’s attack on Ukraine has shown that the social networks and numerous websites are full of fake news, disinformation and media propaganda that try to discredit Ukraine and its defense against Russian aggression. One of those posts on Facebook featured an article from the website “Svi Srbi u Parizu” (“All Serbs in Paris”). The article was entitled: “A Russian soldier crucified and set on fire”.
The text says that a war crime occurred on February 28, when the “Azov” battalion fighters allegedly “crucified a Russian soldier and set him on fire”.
“After five days of operation by the Russian army on the Ukrainian military and civilian population, there are already victims and injured of the ruthless war. However, as in all other wars, this one will not pass without war crimes, and one was recorded and released to the public on the third day of the war, and the recording is really disturbing. As it was published on social networks, in a bizarre video, the fighters of the “Azov” battalion allegedly vented their anger on the captured Russian, or, as they called him, a separatist, whom they crucified and then set on fire”.
The same information was published by Informer and Novosti.
This event has nothing to do with the current situation in Ukraine because the recording was made earlier and was already available in the media.
Namely, on June 12, 2021, the website IN4S announced that it had come into possession of an exclusive video showing members of the Nazi battalion Azov crucifying and then burning a member of the Donbas militia. Back then, we also analyzed this post.
A report about this video can be found on the TV channel “Ukrstream”.tv, and it was broadcast on April 25, 2015. The report contains a statement from one of the members of the Azov military battalion. He denies that they killed the man in the video and states that the video represents an attempt to damage the image of Ukrainian volunteers and the reputation of this battalion.
Fact-checking website “Mythdetector” determined that this is fake news, and has nothing to do with current events in Ukraine. The website states that such claims go back to 2015, there is no evidence to support such claims, and the representatives of the battalion denied the connection with this video.
“The mentioned video has been circulating in Russian-language sources since April 25, 2015. The video was first published by the Russian hacker group” Kiber-Berkut”. In the video, the people who crucified the captured man and then set him on fire say that they belong to the Azov Battalion and that they will punish anyone who cooperates with the separatists. The mentioned information was also broadcast on the TV channel of the Russian Ministry of Defense “Zvezda”, although the story is no longer available. The day after the release, the Azov Battalion responded to the recording. According to their statement, the video serves to discredit them and is an example of an information war against Ukraine. They claim the uniforms of the people shown in the video differ from the uniforms of the fighters of the Azov Battalion because the mark on the shoulder is much bigger than it should be, and the weapon looks like it is pneumatic. They also point out that a person nailed to a cross does not scream while the cross is being raised up, and the video stops shortly after the cross is set on fire, so it is not known if the person really died”, Mythdetector reports.
Al Jazeera explained in detail who are the members of Azov.
As this announcement has nothing to do with the current events in Ukraine and there is no evidence that members of the Azov Battalion are featured in the video, we rate the announcement 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 assessed as fake news is created and disseminated to misinform the public, that is, to present a claim that is completely false as fact.
