Russian fake regarding Ukrinform: non-existent report of non-existent bill

Recently, Russian Telegram channels, a number of accounts on Twitter, TikTok, Vkontakte, and YouTube, as well as mass media, shared a screenshot portrayed as a news piece produced by Ukrinform on March 24.

The "news" piece, posing as originally posted by Ukrinform, stated that a draft law had been tabled in Ukraine’s parliament on the prohibition of photo and video recording of cemeteries. The story referred to the parliament’s website as the source.

This is followed by a specifically worded "explanation" from unspecified legislators that "public coverage of the situation of Ukrainian cemeteries could provide valuable intelligence to the Russian army, as well as create a negative information background within the country itself."

This is a fake report. There was no such news piece on the Ukrinform website. This can be verified by using the Web Machine online archive. Propagandists claim that the report appeared on March 24, at 19:24, but it was never the case. On this date and time, a completely different report was posted.

In addition, since the full-scale invasion, Ukrinform has not capitalized the word “russia” on its Ukrainian and Russian versions. The propagandists failed to take this into account and wrote the name of their country with a capital letter, which also proves this is a doctored piece.

In addition, when reporting on draft laws, Ukrinform always indicates their registration number, which the Russians did not do when fabricating the piece.

In general, such a bill is not found in the archive of bills registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

It is not the first time that Russian propagandists resort to forging screenshots of news allegedly posted by Ukrinform. Last time, they spread information that three people died at the "Invincibility Point" in Kharkiv, while the authorities ordered the Ukrainian media to cover up the tragedy. That fake story was also refuted.

Dmytro Badrak