Over the past week, two minors died on the Russian militant occupied territory of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. On April 2, it was reported that a five-year-old boy died in Oleksandrivske in the Donetsk area. On April 6, in the self-proclaimed Luhansk Peoples’ Republic (LPR) two teenage boys were reported to have been hit by a mine explosion in Slovianoserbsk. In both cases, the Russian side accused Ukraine of the deaths of the minors without any relevant evidence, claiming the boy allegedly died from a Ukrainian drone attack, while the teenagers were allegedly hit by an Ukrainian Armed Forces mine deliberately installed on civilian territory.
StopFake.org decided to analyze the facts and propaganda messages disseminated by Russian and separatist media in connection with the minors’ deaths.
Russian propaganda new fakes and manipulations concerning 5-year-old boy’s death
Previously, StopFake.org analyzed the report on the death of a five-year-old child in Oleksandrivske, in detail. In view of the new information, Russian and separatist media started a new wave of disinformation.
On April 5, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission succeeded in talking to morgue staff and the child’s grandmother over the phone. The autopsy showed that the death was caused by shrapnel wounds and explosive trauma. The grandmother, who was the first to see the boy’s body, told the Mission staff that she was in the house when she heard the explosion and ran outside when she heard a bang. Russian media, in particular RIA, KP, AIF and others, distorted the OSCE SMM report of April 5, saying that the boy was killed “in the shelling.” However, the report has no information about shelling of the locality on that particular day, the type of the explosive device, or its origin.
In the programs Vremia Pokazhet (Time Will Tell) of April 6 (22.30) and Vecher s Vladimirom Solovyovym (Evening with Vladimir Solovyov) of April 7, 2021 (25.30) the hosts and the guests of the talk shows accused the OSCE SMM of bias several times for having allegedly refused to come and record the death of the child in Oleksandrivske. The reality of the situation tells different stoty, the daily OSCE SMM report states that, on that day, representatives of the so-called Donetsk Peoples’ Republic (DPR) restricted the Mission’s movement, which made the monitors unable to reach the place where the tragedy happened.
Russian propagandists also claim that Ukraine allegedly denies the fact of the boy’s death. To prove his existence, the pro-Russian blogger Tatyana Montyan attended the child’s funeral, where she repeatedly stressed that his death was not a fake. On the Vecher s Vladimirom Solovyovym (24.00) television program, well-known Russian propagandist Vladimir Kornilov says that Western and Ukrainian media allegedly refuse to acknowledge the boy’s death. “How can they? We have all already acknowledged what tore this boy apart, The OSCE is already forced to include information about his death in its report. But for some reason, nobody went there, nobody measured the shrapnel, nobody assessed where it came from. They never went there,” Kornilov said.
In reality, Ukrainian experts never denied the child’s death, but they did deny the involvement of a Ukrainian military drone. Russia and the DPR group have not produced any evidence of the Ukrainian Armed Forces being in any way involved in the boy’s death. Oleksandrivske is 15 km away from the contact line. Ukraine uses tactical drones in the Donbas with a range of up to 5 km.
Read more: https://www.stopfake.org/