Photos of stickers with the inscription “Planes with Russians must crash” appeared on the Internet, allegedly pasted by Ukrainians on planes of various airlines. We checked whether these photos are true.

One of the first to publish photo stickers on the plane, there was a Russian Telegram channel “Podem”. The next day, many Russian media wrote about this, claiming that the stickers are posted by Ukrainian extremists. In the article “Ukraine wants to blow up planes carrying Russians,” Komsomolskaya Pravda publication writes: “Ukrainian “special propaganda”, famous for its fierce hatred of everything Russian, has hit another bottom. In the toilets of airliners belonging to the reputable airlines Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines, Bangkok Airways, stickers with a graphic image of an exploding aircraft and the inscription in English “Planes with Russians must crash” suddenly began to appear. And so that everyone understands who such an ominous wish comes from, the self-adhesive leaflet is framed with a yellow-black border.” The news mainly caused discontent among the Internet.users, which mentioned and the possible panic among airline passengers caused by the stickers, and the fact that in the event of a crash, passengers of other nationalities would also die.

Most of the publications about stickers came out on June 16, after the Telegram channel “Podyom” published photographs from Bangkok Airways and Pobeda. Despite the many articles and posts, we counted only four unique photos, copied from publication to publication. Photos from other angles could not be found on any social network. This fact raised doubts about the authenticity of the published photographs. After all, if such stickers hung throughout the entire flight on flights of “dozens of airlines around the world,” most likely, passengers on these flights would photograph the stickers and post them on the Internet. However, digital analysis of the images showed no traces of the photo collage.

As a result, we managed to find a Telegram channel Ukrainian Air Support, which was created on June 14th. On the same day the channel posted file with the sticker design “Planes with Russians must crash”, which exactly matches the images in the media. Under the file, the channel author wrote a call to action in English: “Download. Print it out. Stick it in the airplane lavatory on your flight. Support Ukraine from the air. ??” (Download. Print. Stick in the toilet during your flight. Support Ukraine from the air), as well as an explanation: “We use airplane lavatories because there are no cameras and you will never, ever be identified... ?” (We use airplane toilets because there are no cameras and you will never, ever be identified).

*Source: Telegram channel Ukrainian Air Support*

The very next day, June 15, the channel began publish The first photos of stickers in airplane toilets. Within one hour - from 11:07 to 11:50 - the author posted 18 photographs from aircraft of Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines, Bangkok Airways, Emirates and Pobeda. Half of these photos were taken on Emirates planes. By comparing photographs of aircraft cabins from open sources, we were convinced that the photographs with stickers were indeed taken on the aircraft of the specified airlines.

IN post for June 15 (from an Emirates flight) there are two photographs side by side: one with a whole sticker, and the second with a half torn off one. The sarcastic caption for the post reads: “Nice try.” Everything else in these two frames is identical: from the sanitary cover on the toilet to the folded paper bags. This coincidence suggests that the photographs are staged and were taken by the same person, who first pasted the sticker and then partially tore it off to take the second photo.

The channel’s last post was published on June 17 – it’s a collage of a dozen Russian media headlines with news about stickers on airplanes.

On call No one responded to the author’s request for group members to post their photos of pasted stickers (at least at the time of publication). Instead, participants criticize every publication, campaign invented by the author and the Ukrainian people as a whole. In the entire three-day history of the channel, it was not possible to find a single positive comment in support of the author.

The organizers of the action are unknown. Judging by the photographs, they had access to aircraft from both foreign airlines and the Russian company Pobeda. June 15 Twitter user Terror Alarm wrotethat German authorities suspect Russian intelligence services of putting stickers on Lufthansa planes. In this way, Russia is allegedly trying to “create the false impression that Germany is returning to its genocidal xenophobia from the Second World War.” We did not find any official statements from German authorities or airline representatives.

Thus, it is not known who created the Ukrainian Air Support channel, nor who pasted and photographed the stickers. But we can confidently say that the photographs of stickers on airplanes are not fake, although, most likely, they were staged.