Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 19/04/2022
The war in Ukraine entered its eighth week, and what has marked its course so far, among other things, is the vast number of fake news and disinformation that have been placed both in the media and on various social networks. The disputed Ukrainian battalion – Azov – is often found in them.
One of the most common disinformation matrices so far has been the practice of attributing descriptions and timelines to specific photographs that differ significantly from the actual facts.
This was also the case when a photo of two young men was shared on Facebook, one of whom was wearing a T-shirt with the “Azov” logo on it.
“Dear believers of the NVO CPC, in this photo you can see 2 Ukrainian soldiers who were captured and mistreated by the Russian army. The soldier on the right shows where he was beaten on the back and the soldier on the left shows which direction the Russians went. Evil Russians are violating the Geneva Convention. Glory to Hitl… Zelensky and Ukraine”, states the profile called Mihailo Miras Dedeic, from which false content was placed several times, mainly targeting the CPC Metropolitan Mihailo.
Although the young man in the photo is wearing a T-shirt with the insignia of the Azov military unit, which is actively participating in the conflict with the Russian army in Ukraine, he is not a Russian prisoner who was beaten by the Russians as stated in the disputed announcement.
The man in the picture is called Roman Zheleznov, and he is a Russian who joined Ukraine a few years ago.
What is even more important is that the same photo in the Facebook post was published in the mentioned article.
It is not known when the photo was taken, but it is clear that it is not current and that it does not show Ukrainian soldiers who Russia captured during the current war.
In the text itself, it is possible to read that Zheleznov was sentenced by a Russian court to four years in prison in absentia, marking him as a foreign mercenary.
The stated facts tell us that the photo from the Facebook post is not current, and that it is at least four years old. Therefore, the claim that there are captured soldiers who were mistreated by the Russian army is unfounded. The fact that the information is false becomes clear when you see that one of the men in the photo is Roman Zheleznov, who was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison in Russia for joining the Ukrainian military battalion. Also, a reverse search on the TinEye website shows that this photo was also published in 2015.
Due to all the above, we evaluate the post from the Facebook profile of Mihailo Miras Dedeic 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 completely false as fact.