Stupid disinformation: Ukrainian soldiers threaten and shoot at woman and child? Kremlin propaganda makes a fool of itself with staged video

From the very beginning, Russia has tried to justify its war of aggression against Ukraine by saying that it must protect its own people and all people of Russian origin from the Kiev Nazi regime and the fascists in the West.

Stupid disinformation: Ukrainian soldiers threaten and shoot at woman and child? Kremlin propaganda makes a fool of itself with staged video

From the very beginning, Russia has tried to justify its war of aggression against Ukraine by saying that it must protect its own people and all people of Russian origin from the Kiev Nazi regime and the fascists in the West. Kremlin propaganda regularly fuels this narrative with alleged "evidence".

The most recent example: A dashcam video of an alleged vehicle check by Ukrainian soldiers, during which the driver and her child, who is said to be in the car with her, are massively insulted and threatened when one of the military officers notices that the woman speaks Russian and is Muslim. Towards the end of the recording, which is a little over two minutes, the soldier fires several more shots in the direction of the vehicle.

We took a closer look at the video - a fact check with a clear result.

Allegation: Ukrainian soldiers stop a mother and child in the car, a military threatens the two and shoots in the direction of the vehicle.

Rating: Wrong. The video is staged and filmed east of Donetsk in Russian-controlled territory.

The facts: The video of the alleged vehicle inspection was first distributed on Monday afternoon (March 27) on various pro-Russian Telegram channels, including accounts with several hundred thousand subscribers. As a result, official Kremlin mouthpieces also picked up the story. The Russian Foreign Ministry shared the recording on Twitter and wrote: "Once a Nazi, always a Nazi. This is the kind of terror in which Ukrainians live." While the Foreign Ministry has since deleted the tweet without comment, the disinformation is still online on the Twitter profile of the Russian Embassy in the UK:

Why disinformation? After publication, several Internet users quickly found out that no Ukrainian soldiers could be seen here and that the video was instead staged to present Ukraine as a Nazi country.

The strongest argument for the disinformation thesis: Although the journey recorded by the dashcam provides hardly any information about the surroundings, a few prominent points such as tree branches, power poles and a fork in the road were sufficient to locate the location east of Donetsk (Google Maps link) . The proof: On another dashcam recording starting in Donetsk, the exact arrangement of tree branches can be seen at one point, as can also be seen in the fake video.

According to this, the video was taken about 30 kilometers behind the current front line in an area controlled by the Russian army. It is 100 percent impossible that Ukrainian units are patrolling here:

The location of the recording, located east of Donetsk, and the many inconsistencies made even pro-Russian channels doubt the authenticity of the story. An account with around 300,000 subscribers, which had also distributed the video along with the Nazi narrative, later wrote very sheepishly: "We still have to learn and learn when carrying out such information operations."

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