In May 2022, an image of girls with their arms in the air went viral. It is alleged that among them is Katerina Prokopenko, the wife of one of the leaders of the Azov regiment. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.
On May 11, 2022, during the communication of the Pope with those who came to St. Peter's Square, the Pontiff spoke for several minutes spoke with Katerina Prokopenko and Yulia Fedosyuk - the wives of soldiers of the Ukrainian Azov regiment, who were at that moment on the territory of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. The women asked Francis to transport the remaining fighters on the territory of the enterprise to a third country and negotiate with the President of Russia.
The next day, the Russian TV channel “Zvezda” published on its website there is material entitled “Supporters of Nazism: what is known about the wives of Azov fighters who met with the Pope.” The author of the note, Timur Sherzad, states: “The wives of the fighters of the nationalist Azov battalion, whom Pope Francis received, themselves sympathize with the ideas of Nazism and called for murder on social networks, while one of the girls turned out to be Katerina Prokopenko, the wife of the Azov commander Denis Prokopenko. The girl not only chose a radical as her life partner, but also openly demonstrated her attitude towards the ideas of nationalism. Her early photographs have already been found on the Internet, where she poses with her right hand raised.”
The photograph attached as evidence was also published on May 12 and 13 by other media, for example, the publication Readovka on VKontakte. The image was also distributed by other public pages on this social network, in particular “Reports from the New Russia militia” (480,000 subscribers) and "Donetsk DPR Russia news of Donbass New Russia" (264,000 subscribers). A photo in my Telegram channel published head of the Roscosmos state corporation Dmitry Rogozin. The statement that the photo shows Katerina Prokopenko has also become widespread abroad - for example, the relevant posts can be found on Twitter at English And French languages.
Let’s start with the fact that neither the media, nor Telegram channels, nor public pages on VKontakte provide links directly to Katerina Prokopenko’s social networks or screenshots of her publications as evidence. In particular, the Zvezda TV channel refers to a post from the Telegram channel "Urgent, now" (its authors did not indicate their sources). We were unable to find Katerina Prokopenko’s social media accounts to verify the presence of a corresponding photo on these pages.
The photo, which was used by Russian media and Telegram channels, has been circulating on the Internet for quite some time. For example, in 2015, an edited version of the image (Nazi symbols and a portrait of Hitler were painted on T-shirts) published on forums and social networks with captions like “Please get acquainted with the new European country - Ukraine” and “Modern Banderaism in Ukraine.” Even then, our colleagues from the Finnish publication Yle paid attention readers that the photograph is being used to misinform Internet users.
In fact, the image appeared long before 2015. Its earliest use, an example of which discovered fact checkers from the Italian project Facta, dates back to September 2010. Then a demotivator based on this photo appeared on the website demotivators.ru. We were also able to discover demotivator on the website ucrazy.ru, published back in February of the same year.
Is it possible that the photo taken about 12 years ago shows Katerina Prokopenko? According to France 24 And Corriere della Serra, the girl is now 27 years old, that is, in 2010 she was a 15-year-old teenager. Moreover, the photographs most likely depict girls from Poland, and this conclusion can be drawn not only because of the Polish flag on the T-shirt of the girl on the left. Until 2014 the image was often published on Polish websites (this is evidenced by the corresponding watermarks), using the phrases “Polish schoolgirls” and “Polish girls” in signatures.
Thus, the statement that the girl depicted in the photo and Katerina Prokopenko are the same person is based solely on a subjective assessment of external similarity. However, there is no clear objective evidence to support this version. The “age” of the photograph and the fact that in the early 2010s the photograph was associated with Poland, and not with Ukraine, allow us to doubt the accuracy of the theses of Zvezda and other media.
This is not accurate
- Facta. La ragazza di questa foto non è la moglie di un soldato del battaglione Azov
- Is it true that Ukrainian stores sold Easter cakes with the symbols of the Azov regiment?
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