Fake from Senegal: Ukraine secretly bought 'weapons-grade uranium' from Niger

Senegal's online resource Senenews published a "news story" about Ukraine’s alleged secret purchase of "weapons-grade uranium" from Niger to create nuclear weapons, referring to a YouTube "interview" with a source in the Niger army.

The "interview" itself is a two-minute video recorded with a man in a military uniform without any insignia and wearing dark glasses, who introduces himself as Oumarou, a non-commissioned officer of Niger’s presidential guard. In his words, he witnessed a "secret visit" to Niger by Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, which allegedly took place on November 11, 2023, and that the Ukrainian side, with the help of the French company Orano, supposedly signed a contract to supply "weapons-grade uranium" to Ukraine. However, after General Abdourahamane Tchiani took power after a military coup, this "contract" was terminated.

This "news story" was widely spread online by Russian media outlets and z-Telegram channels.

This is a fake. Firstly, Rustem Umerov met with Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anušauskas in Kyiv on November 11.

Secondly, the video with the "non-commissioned officer of Niger’s presidential guard was uploaded on the Groupe de Presse Nigerinter YouTube channel, which has only 302 subscribers.

Although this channel was created on September 6, 2022, the video was posted only three days ago.

This channel is a clone of the Groupe de Presse Multimedia Nigerinter YouTube channel, which has existed for over nine years and has 11,400 subscribers.

Senenews, in its fake news story, refers to the Groupe de Presse Multimedia Nigerinter YouTube channel. However, this channel does not have a video with an anonymous soldier from Niger.

The propagandists simply created a YouTube channel with the same logo and even uploaded the same videos as the original channel, adding a fake video.

Thirdly, Senenews published its "news story" about Ukraine backdated to November 22, 2010, and updated it as if it had been published on January 22, 2024. This was done to make it difficult to find the publication on the website.

The fake news story was not published in the news feed or in the section about Niger on the Senenews website, nor was it published on social media. That is, it is being hidden on purpose to be used only for propaganda purposes.

This is not the first time that Russian propaganda has attempted to spread fake news about Ukraine through dubious African online resources. For example, the Nigerian website The Nation published two fakes about the alleged deaths of eight Ukrainian soldiers in Sudan and Olena Zelenska's purchase of jewelry worth more than one million dollars in New York.

In both cases, the primary source of the fake, as in the "news story" about the purchase of uranium from Niger, was a video with statements from people who could not be identified.

Earlier, Russian propaganda spread a fake from the Polish website Myśl Polska, claiming that Russia had hit Kyiv's military infrastructure with Kinzhal missiles.

Andriy Olenin