In May 2022, Russian media published a video that allegedly showed a fire started in the town of Wulfen by refugees from Ukraine. We have verified the accuracy of such messages.
May 19 edition of Readovka published a note entitled “Ukrainian refugees set fire to the house of the German girl who sheltered them.” It, citing the German magazine Bild, claims that the refugees “in an attempt to burn the Russian flag, destroyed the entire house that the Germans provided them.” “They didn’t like the symbols of the Russian Federation so much that they decided to get rid of them right on the doorstep of their homes. The refugees carried the Russian flag onto the porch and, using a “Tesla transformer,” effectively set it on fire. At first everything went according to plan, but later the flames spread to the room. It was completely engulfed in fire,” says Readovka. The publication also included a 30-second video illustrating the events described.
Similar materials were published by other media, including "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Moscow 24", "Tsargrad", EuroAsia Daily, Pravda.ru, newspaper "Work", IA "Red Spring", "Federal News Agency" etc.
We were unable to find materials on the Bild website about the fire allegedly started by Ukrainian refugees. This is not mentioned in other German publications either. Nothing doesn't report about the alleged fire in mid-May and the police of the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt, responsible for Wulfen.
The video became widely known not only in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet. It attracted the attention of fact checkers from different countries, including from projects Correctiv, AFP Germany, Delfi etc. As our colleagues found out, the viral video was actually compiled from three different recordings.
The first of them, which depicts the operation of a Tesla coil, was taken from Instagram* of user @marek415. This blog is run by Czech student Marek Novotny, who is interested in electronics. In comments to AFP Novotny confirmedthat in mid-March he recorded a video with a Tesla coil and a Russian flag in order to express support for Ukraine. Novotny subsequently deleted the video.
The second component of the video is much older. The footage filmed outside the burning house has nothing to do with the events of 2022 - they were taken from the video, published on YouTube nine years earlier. Later, the logo of the German magazine Bild was added to the video. In addition to the video, a screenshot of the front page of the magazine with a frame from this video also went viral on the Internet. Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Bild described such publications are considered “absolute fake.”
Finally, the third part of the video is a video filmed inside a house allegedly burned by refugees. In reality the recording was done back in January 2021 in Lower Saxony, 300 km from Wulfen.
AFP Germany contacted with the police station, whose work area includes Wulfen. The police officer told reporters that as of May 20, he and his colleagues were not aware of any fires involving Ukrainian refugees.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: YouTube
Fake
- Correctiv. Gefälschtes Video stammt nicht von der Bild und hat nichts mit ukrainischen Geflüchteten zu tun
- AFP Germany. Diese “Bild”-Berichte über ukrainische Flüchtlinge als Brandverursacher sind gefälscht
- Is it true that Ukrainian refugees killed a German volunteer who spoke to them in Russian?
- Is it true that Ukrainian refugees in Italy beat the granddaughter of Joseph Brodsky?
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