Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 28/04/2022
While the war in Ukraine continues to flare up, at the same time, war propaganda is flaring up in the pro-Russian media and on social networks, which want to justify the fight against the alleged “Ukrainian Nazis”.
One of these Facebook posts shared a photo of Roma people in Ukraine tied to poles and street lamps with yellow ribbon and sprayed with green paint on their faces, along with the following post:
“Ukrainians tie Roma people to poles and leave them to die! Is this the Ukraine that Europe is fighting for! ??? It is no longer a fight between Russia and Ukraine, but a healthy life is being fought here against Satanists and Nazis”.
This event did take place in the city of Lviv in Ukraine, but it was used for war propaganda purposes, although it has a different background.
The website Russiatoday (RT) reports that local media from that city claim that Roma people were punished for attempted theft in a bus, but also that some users of social networks report that the harsh punishment was due to the nationality of the victims.
“Members of the Territorial Defense Forces, a recently established volunteer branch of the Ukrainian army, have been blamed for this heinous act. The photos from the site show masked uniformed people”, RT reports, without offering concrete proof for its claim.
The Russian media states that “foreigners and minorities are being persecuted in other parts of Ukraine by radicals” and cites as an example “African students who are not allowed to board trains with refugees and Indian students who have received similar treatment”.
However, the voluntary non-governmental non-profit organization Romea, which unites Roma and non-Roma citizens and whose primary goal is to support the fight against racism, warned the Ukrainian authorities that Russia had distorted photos of Roma people for propaganda purposes.
“People are allegedly members of a group of pickpockets, and during the recent robbery in Lviv, they were arrested by avengers and treated in this unacceptable way. Russian propaganda now claims that these photos confirm that neo-Nazis are active in Ukraine. People in the photos were caught in Kyiv several times for pickpocketing. Their photos were taken and shared by several groups that publish such cases. A group in Lviv called ‘Hunters’ persecute Roma involved in pickpocketing in public places”, Julian Kondur, a young Roma activist from Ukraine, told Romea.cz.
Kondur, as Romea.cz reports, said that the pro-Russian narrative is used to accuse Ukraine of allegedly being led by neo-Nazis and that the photos were shared on the social network Telegram through accounts run by Russian agents.
The website also states that the Ukrainian police have already identified several attackers who tied up the Roma.
It is obvious that Roma are discriminated against in a large number of countries, including Ukraine, which the European Center for Roma Rights stated. The Roma, as an endangered population that already had big problems in Ukraine, were additionally affected by the war in Ukraine, but posts on Facebook certainly cannot be connected with the authorities in Ukraine or put in the context of the current war.
Since the event presented in this post has nothing to do with the Nazis but has a different background, we rate this post as “disinformation”.
The rating “disinformation” is given to a media report that contains a “mixture” of facts and inaccurate or semi-true content. In such cases, the media does not need to be necessarily aware of the inaccurate information published along with the truth. Also, this assessment will treat reports that have false attributions or titles that do not reflect the text in terms of accuracy of information.