Russian propaganda spreads fake claim linking soldier to explosion at Ovruch railway station

Kremlin propagandists forged a Ukrainian media report in an attempt to discredit the Ukrainian Armed Forces

Russian media outlets and social media bots are circulating claims that the man who detonated a hand grenade near a train in the Zhytomyr region on October 24 was allegedly a Ukrainian serviceman. Propagandists assert that the attacker supposedly served under the "18-24" contract program in the 58th Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

This is false. Russian propagandists falsified a publication from a Ukrainian media outlet. Using graphic editing software, they inserted a fabricated sentence into the first paragraph of the original article: "Preliminarily, the explosion was caused by a participant in the '18-24' program from the 58th Infantry Brigade."

In reality, official statements from law enforcement agencies and credible Ukrainian news reports make no mention of any military personnel being involved in the incident at the Ovruch railway station. Authorities only reported that the suspect had previously been detained while attempting to cross the border illegally.

In another case, Russian propaganda spread a fake story claiming that a fire in a garage cooperative in Sumy was caused by the actions of the 21st Mechanized Brigade.

That claim is also false. Propagandists added the phrase "caused by a military mechanized brigade" to the headline of a legitimate article from a local Sumy media outlet. In fact, at the time the story was published, the State Emergency Service was still determining the cause of the fire.

In this way, Russian propaganda continues its campaign to discredit Ukrainian soldiers and the "18-24" contract program, aiming to undermine recruitment into the Ukrainian army.

As Ukrinform previously reported, Russian propagandists have fabricated a series of similar fake stories based on local crime reports from media outlets in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions, falsely attributing the alleged crimes to a "Ukrainian serviceman."

Andriy Olenin