Deconstructing the fake: «There is no war in Ukraine»

Nowadays, when information technology and social networks are at the peak of their development, people can easily learn about this or that news in any part of the world. However, despite this, there will always be someone who will argue that a certain conflict or event is not happening, against the fact that it does not correspond to reality.

Currently, there is a war in Ukraine, which has already led to the death of tens of thousands of people. Millions have either lost their homes and jobs or are now forced to live as refugees. The war led to destruction and suffering, but some opinion leaders deny the very fact of this war and promote false information that there is no war at all in Ukraine.

 

Fake 1

On February 24, 2023, Stew Peters posted anti-Ukrainian tweets about the fact that there is no war in Ukraine. He justified his words by the fact that Ukrainians could not repair their house in a whole year. He used the video of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine as evidence.

 

 

Who is Stew Peters?

Stew Peters was born on April 1, 1980, and is a blogger with far-right views. He is famous for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and conspiracy theories. On weekdays, he produces his online show called Stew Peters Show. In often features conspiracy theories about government organizations such as The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and invites famous conspiracy theorists such as Paul Gosar, Mark Meadows, and L. Lyn Wood as guests.

Truth

On February 26, 2022, on the third day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, a missile attack was carried out on civilian buildings in Kyiv, resulting in damage to residential buildings. Journalists published many videos from the scene, which quickly spread around the world.

After Russian troops retreated from Kyiv and its surroundings in March 2022. The process of repair and reconstruction of the house began, which was noted in detail by the mass media.

Therefore, there is no reason to say that the war in Ukraine is fake, just because the houses in Kyiv were quickly repaired.

 

Fake 2

Another strange post is making the rounds on Twitter, suggesting that the entire war was somehow faked. Here, for example, is a statement from Kyle Becker where he states that he does not have enough personnel from Ukraine.

 

Who is Kyle Becke?

Kyle Becke is the founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief of Becker News. Previously worked as a writer and associate producer for Fox News, the #1 live television channel. Also served as Director of Viral Media and Senior Editor at IJReview, a startup website with 20-30 million monthly readers.

 

Truth

Kyle Becker tweeted the lack of footage from the front lines to support this theory. However, this is not true as the war is well documented and there is a lot of footage from the Ukrainian frontline collected by global media such as the BBC. Governments and agencies around the world confirm that the war is real.

Social networks are full of videos about the war, many of which have been verified by journalists as authentic. So the claim that the entire war is fake is false.

There was even an interactive map showing the cities of Ukraine after shelling by the armed forces of the Russian Federation.

 

Fake 3

A video with a «living corpse» has gone viral on the Internet.

The viral video purports to show a news broadcast from Ukraine, in which one of the dead Ukrainians appears to be moving in a body bag in the background. This video is spreading on social networks as proof that war does not exist.

The video led to claims that it was «proof» that the actors were hired to play troupes to support the Western narrative about the war in Ukraine.

 

Truth

The report «from the scene» turned out to be an ordinary fake.

This video is a mash-up of two separate news releases. It contains video footage from German news about a protest against climate change, where participants of the event wore body bags, as well as an audio recording of NBC’s report on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

 

Conclusion

Although modern technology makes it easy for people to learn about world events and conflicts, there are people who promote fake news and deny the obvious facts.

This war is destroying the country and causing great suffering. But some public figures deny the very fact of the existence of the war by promoting false information and spreading fakes.

These are just three examples when media persons spread fakes as if there is no «war in Ukraine». There are much more of them, which only means that you need to check sources that spread questionable information.

 

Danylo Kondysiuk