Original article (in Serbian) was published on 14/04/2022
A video in which the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) detains a man whose face is blurred was presented these days in the pro-regime media as the alleged arrest of NATO commander Roger Cloutier in Ukraine. The website of the national television Happy unquestionably claims that the American commander “came to Ukraine to kill”, and that he was arrested. However, the video they published does not feature Roger Cloutier.
The claims that Russia arrested US General Roger L. Cloutier have first spread these days on social networks and then on some Serbian websites such as Informer, Pravda and the website of Happy television. As an “argument” of the alleged arrest, a video is shared showing in half a minute how members of the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) arrest a man wearing a jacket and a cap on his head, whose face is hidden, while in the upper left corner is a photo of Roger Cloutier in uniform.
The website of Happy TV claims that the American general “came to Ukraine to kill!” and invites readers to “look at the video of the arrest which NATO is hiding”. Just before the end of the text, they state that there is no confirmation of the arrest.
All three websites – Informer, Pravda and Happy, used the post of Twitter user Kentaur Wolf2 as a source for their news, who shared this video with an ironic comment “they told me I lied that General Cloutier was arrested”. The video gathered more than a thousand “likes” in two days, and it was shared over 220 times.
The video clearly shows the logo of “RIA NOVOSTI”.
That alone was enough to find on the website of this media that the video was published on April 7, 2022, with the news that a man was arrested who, according to the FSB, is allegedly a member of the “Crimean Tatar volunteer battalion Noman Celebijihan”, which the Russians consider illegal. The FSB arrested him in March when he tried to enter Crimea, and he was sentenced to two months in prison.
Apart from the fact that the viral video does not show the arrest of the American general, there are no arguments that Cloutier was arrested at all.
At the beginning of April, along with the photo of Cloutier, claims were shared on social networks suggesting that the Russians had arrested him in Ukraine, and some went a step further, claiming that he was caught with members of the neo-Nazi battalion AZOV. These claims have been disputed several times by fact-checking websites.
“These rumors are completely untrue”, Andrews said. “Our commander is currently in command of the NATO Allied Command in Izmir, Turkey, and has not been to Ukraine since talks with the ground headquarters we conducted in July 2021. NATO countries are sending financial and military aid to Ukraine, but there are no deployed NATO soldiers or leaders”, Politifact reported.
Also, photos of the NATO ceremony in Izmir, which Cloutier himself attended, were published on the official Twitter and Facebook accounts of the NATO Allied Command on April 5.
Cloutier also shared photos of the ceremony from Izmir on his LinkedIn profile, and in a comment on the post, one of the users asked him if he could deny the rumors that the Russians arrested him along with the members of neo-Nazi Azov.
Roger Cloutier replied that “the rumors are completely incorrect”.
In recent days, other websites for verifying facts from the world and the region have written that the Russians did not arrest/capture Commander Roger Cloutier – Raskrinkavanje.ba, USA Today, Reuters.