Dozens of media published a photo of burning books allegedly set on fire by the Russian military in the captured territories of Ukraine. We figured out what actually was happening in this photo.
May 21, 2022, UK Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons Published In its twitter, photos of piles of burning books with the signature “Books of books on Ukrainian history are not denazification. This is the opposite. " For a week, Twit scored more than 4000 comments and almost 15,000 likes. Many Users In the comments Spent an analogy with the burning of books in Nazi Germany in 1933. Media, mainly Ukrainian, quoted Simmons Ambassador tweet, adding an explanation to the photo: “Russian invaders in the captured territories of Ukraine burn Ukrainian books. Particular hatred is caused by them from the history of Ukraine. ” Some specifiedthat burning books are printed in Russian.
Ambassador Melinda Simmons left Ukraine in early March, after the start of hostilities, and April 29 Returned In Kyiv. When the ambassador published a photo of burning books on May 21, she did not specify where and when a picture was taken. She also did not indicate where she borrowed this photograph. Numerous media added that the books are burned precisely by “Russian invaders in the captured territories of Ukraine”. Polish portal Infopugila wrotethat the action takes place in Ukrainian Melitopol.

The next day, one of Twitter users indicated on an erroneous attribution of a photograph that actually appeared in Photobank UNIAN back in March 2010. According to the description, the pictures capture the procession of the progressive socialist party of Ukraine (PSPU) in Simferopol on March 14, 2010. PSPU periodically organized Anti -NATO rallies in Ukraine, Speaking Against the accession of Ukraine to NATO and the European Union and for the creation of a new interstate Union of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Specifically, this photo used by the ambassador is not in the photo bank. But according to the covers of books and a paving pattern, it is possible to assume with a high probability that this is the same pile of books.
Another user, answering to the ambassador's tweet, provided a link to publication "Censor.net" 2014 with the exact same photo. The publication, in turn, refers to the user of the NPUBOP LiveJournal, who posted photo selection pro -Russian torch marches in the Crimea. Most of the pictures in the selection are taken during processions 2009 And 2010 years. The photograph of interest to us was taken in March 2010 on stock on burning textbooks on the history of Ukraine. The protesters were unhappy with the new history textbooks, introduced into circulation in 2009. Then information about the Holodomor, Stalinist repressions and the activities of the OUN-UPA were added to the textbooks. The protesters believed that the authors of the benefits did not have the right to rewrite history. Then on March 14, 2010, activists brought hundreds of textbooks to Lenin Square in Simferopol, doused them with kerosene and set fire to them. “This initiative of students of different universities in Crimea,” - explained The leader of the movement "Kievan Rus" Nadezhda Polyakova. “They do not want to put up with such a“ edited ”history of the country where the events of the Great Patriotic War are perverted and the accomplices of the Nazis are called national heroes.” Nevertheless, the burning of the “rewritten history” was symbolic. Under the covers-ccopias of the "latest history of Ukraine" in fact turned out to be Textbooks on chemistry and biology, stories of Yaroslav Gashek, magazines "Around the World" and "Roman-Haze".

So, the photograph in the tweet of the Melinda Simmons Ambassador is actually not related to the “Denazification of Ukraine” operation, begun by the Russian government in February 2022. This photograph was taken 12 years before - at a rally of pro -Russian nationalists in Simferopol.
The first analysis of the photograph of interest to us in our Video Made on May 23, 2022, Ukrainian video blogger Anatoly Shariy, who drew attention to the Twit of the Simmons Ambassador and published a refutation.
Not true
Image on the cover: Twitter
Read on the topic:
- Deutsche Welle: How National Socialists purified the "German spirit"
- Stopfake: Fake: A picture of burning books on the history of Ukraine is “Photoshop”
- Is it true that the textbooks found in the Ukrainian school promote Nazism?
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