Did the Mexican television channel say that American grenade launchers were at the Armed Forces of Ukraine?

The network is distributed from the news transmission, which allegedly said that the anti -tank weapon delivered to the United States in Ukraine is now in the possession of the Mexican drug cartel. We checked whether this is so.

The fact that American grenade launchers intended for the Armed Forces of Ukraine found themselves in the drug mafia in Mexico, reported June 1, the Star channel. Row Media, for example ""Arguments and facts", Wrote that the criminals" bought out the weapons that the Kiev regime offered to them ", or even So: “The Armed Forces of Ukraine sold Swedish grenade launchers to the Mexican drug cartel.” Some publications are accompanied personnel from newsletter in Spanish or screenshot, which, presumably, captures a militant of a drug cartel with a machine gun and a grenade launcher. Some sources They saythat this is the Swedish grenade launcher M136, others writeWhat is the American Javelin TFTR. The plot has become popular in Telegram, in particular the thematic posts of channels Foreign Ministry of Russia And "Stars" Shared TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov (242,000 and 219,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), and fast In the Readovka channel, I gained 843,000 views. Different variations this plot, According to the TGSTAT service, more than 4 million views received over June. The plot also received widespread on English language.

Four -second video clip, which became the basis for publications, disagreed at the end of May 2023 in Spanish -speaking social networks and, indeed, was shown in release News of the Milenio TV channel on May 30. “Presumably, a member of the cartel is recorded with one of the most exclusive and powerful types of weapons-Javelin, which is theoretically sold to the military and was used, for example, in the invasion of Ukraine,” said the announcer in Spanish. However, the video shows not Javelin, and one of the models of a grenade launcher AT4 (aka M136), which has been produced by the Swedish company Saab since the 1980s. Probably, an erroneous statement about the grenade launcher model is due to the fact that the supply of Javelin to Ukraine was devoted to Huge The number of publications from the beginning of a full -scale invasion.

At the same time, as can be seen from the text of the eyeliner, the leading of the Mexican television channel did not claim that the weapons from Ukraine did not specify at all how it was in the hands of the cartel. English -speaking users, sharing the roller, incorrectly translated the eyeliner and directly connected a grenade launcher from the video with Ukraine. On Twitter this is a distortion Picked up The Russian embassy in Mexico, and then the Russian media and social networks developed the plot to the version of direct sales of weapons of the Kiev Mexican drug dealers.

As for the origin of the weapon, experts talk about the extremely low probability of his connection with Ukrainians. AT4 has been produced for more than 35 years and officially located In service with 15 countries. AP factor Interrupted A number of weapons trade experts, and all of them agree that the most likely way to get the AT4 grenade launchers into the hands of criminals, it is worth considering direct deliveries from the United States or even from the warehouses of the Mexican army, which also uses this weapons. The fact that not a single case of weapons from Ukraine got into Mexico entered Mexico, noted In an interview with the RTVI channel and Mexico Ambassador to the Russian Federation Eduardo Vilhegas Mehias. 

At the same time, a retired American artilleryman and a popular video blogger Ryan Macbeth at all claimswhat a yellow grenade launcher in the frame corresponds Not a combat, but an AT4 training model, however, the quality of the video does not allow one percent confirm this hypothesis. Journalist John Grillo, specializing in the coverage of the activities of drug cartels, analyzing the hype around the viral video, Notesthat Latin American drug dealers own weapons of this level enough for a long time And they regularly upload videos with weapons and even scenes of murders to demonstrate their strength. However, for the first time, the video from the "drugs" received such a resonance, "provoking the dispute about the war going 6,000 miles in Ukraine."

Thus, there is no evidence that the AT4 combat or training grenade launcher, which is in the hands of the drug cartel, is somehow connected with the supply of weapons to Ukraine, and on the air of the Milenio channel did not sound such statements. Users of social networks and the Russian embassy in Mexico intentionally or by mistake incorrectly interpreted the phrase of the announcer of the Mexican television channel, which subsequently led to the spread of inaccurate information in the media.

Photo on the cover: frame from the news release of the Milenio channel

Not true

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