Russian propaganda fakes Euronews, BR24 videos to discredit Ukrainian refugees in Europe
Russian media outlets, pro-war Telegram channels and Russian bots on social media platform X are spreading a video news report allegedly issued by the Euronews channel. In the video with the channel's symbols, a refugee from Ukraine allegedly opened in the Polish city of Gdansk a beauty salon with mosquitoes, the bite of which was supposed to rid her customers of cellulite and excess weight. Instead, the customers developed allergies, and the police arrested the Ukrainian woman on charges of fraud. At the time of her "detention," she allegedly managed to earn a million zlotys.
This is a fake video. It cannot be found on the media company's official website or social networks. That this story is a complete fabrication can be explained by the fact that there were no Polish media reports on similar cases of fraud. The Russians used the Euronews symbols and logo for a fake.
The video itself is a compilation of pictures and videos that can be found on the internet, notably shots with mosquitoes and cells of the human body.
Footage of the alleged detention of the Ukrainian woman was recorded in 2020, two years before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At the time, a 32-year-old woman was arrested for setting fire to the doors of a gallery in Gdansk.
Another "video news report" being spread by the Russian media and pro-war Telegram channels concerns Germany. Propagandists are distributing a video allegedly shot by journalists from the German TV channel BR24. In the video, a Ukrainian, a former employee of the National Bank of Ukraine, allegedly engaged in forgery of documents in Germany, sold fake medical letters to German sex workers. Because of this, the number of venereal diseases has allegedly increased dramatically in Germany. The "Ukrainian" allegedly earned 4 million euros from such fraud.
This is also a fake video. There is no such video on the official website of BR24 or the TV channel's social media platforms. This story is just as fabricated as the fake Euronews video. Russian propaganda invented a story discrediting Ukraine and Ukrainians and created a video using pictures and videos that can be found in the public domain.
Shots with hryvnias were taken from a video news story about the production of Ukrainian banknotes nine years ago.
Footage with the German police and a medical test are also stock images that can be found on the internet.
The footage of German doctor Marcus Maurer purporting to talk about an outbreak of venereal disease and the threat to this summer's European Football Championship was taken from a YouTube lecture on how to treat hives.
Both of these fakes are aimed at discrediting refugees from Ukraine in the eyes of Poles and Germans.
Earlier, Russian propaganda spread a fake about a "Ukrainian" setting fire to a California-based DNA center because of Nazism.
Andriy Olenin
