In August 2023, the media and social networks reported that in the capital of Ukraine they decided to mock the explosion of a gas station in Dagestan and announced a musical party with a fire show. We checked if this story is true.
The first publications about this event appeared on the evening of August 15. The messages are based on two screenshots allegedly taken on Instagram* of the Kyiv club Forsage. The first image is a screenshot of the establishment's profile, which shows that they allegedly recently posted the story shown in the second screenshot. According to the viral announcement, on August 18 there should be a party with a fire show called “Fiery Makhachkala” with “cocktails, clapping, explosive music and wild dancing.” According to the authors of numerous posts, in this way the club owners decided to “celebrate” the explosion at a gas station in the capital of Dagestan, which happened on the evening of August 14th. As a result of the incident, according to data at the time of writing this analysis, 35 people were killed and another 119 were injured. The poster being distributed uses a frame from video fire after explosion.
In the Telegram channel "Pozdnyakov 3.0”(235,000 views) the announcements were commented on as follows: “How advisable is it to spend one “Caliber” on this club at the moment when this party is going on there? I understand that Caliber is very expensive, but maybe, as an exception, it’s worth spending money on this?” Author of the channel "Sexton"(51,000 views) supplemented this sentence: “I think these satanics could use an arrangement of “Calibers” or “Onyxes”, and “Geranium” as a gift.” In the channel "First People's"(154,000 views) based on the announcement, Ukrainians were called “possessed by the devil”, in “Ostashko! Important"(121,000) - "angry non-humans", in "Scott Ritter on Telegram" (113,000) - "heartless bastards" and "typical Nazis." In the channel "Uncle Slava” (194,000 views) expressed the following opinion about the party (spelling and punctuation preserved): “The more of these bastards I see, the more I understand how correct it is that we are conducting a special operation.” Similar posts appeared in the channels “Fisherman"(281,000 views), "Observer"(184,000), Voblya (147,000), Zergulio (110,000) and "Petya the First"(91,000), on VKontakte (examples here And here), as well as in some media, for example EADaily And "Notebook"
Since “Verified” regularly monitors Telegram channels, repeatedly caught on the spread of fakes, we drew attention to reports of an alleged Kyiv party on the evening of August 15. The earliest publication with screenshots allegedly from the Instagram of the Kyiv club appeared in the channel “Shaman Rahu” (8000 views) at 21:19 Moscow time. The images were accompanied by the following description: “The f***ing club in Kyiv has gone completely crazy, rejoices at the explosion in Dagestan and held a themed party about it. People, f***ing, burned in fire and died, and these f***ers came up with a fire show. There is no one to save there, sorry, only total destruction.”
The screenshot being distributed indicates that the announcement appeared 22 hours ago, however, when we looked Instagram-the club page 12 minutes after the first publication, there were no fresh stories there, although they should be visible within 24 hours. We also checked the comments under the latest posts, but did not find a single message about a party on the theme of the explosion in Makhachkala. There was no such announcement in Facebook* and on the club website, where events are in poster were announced until August 17th. At the same time, on the evening of August 15, “Verified” asked for a comment from the club, but at that time did not receive a response.
Since within a few hours the news about the party was widely spread on the RuNet, on the night of August 16 the club published a refutation in several stories. First contained text in Ukrainian:
The announcement of a “fire party”, which is being dispersed in Telegram channels, is someone’s stupid provocation. We have not and do not conduct fire shows for safety reasons and do not offend people based on their nationality. The “fire show” poster is a fake, aimed at inciting hostility, to which we have nothing to do.
Second The message was specially “for those who do not understand Ukrainian”:
There are many worthy people from Dagestan living in Kyiv, who have often visited us and support Ukraine. All reasonable people understand that such a poster could not exist in our club. How can one even believe that such a poster would have stayed on the news feed for 22 hours without a harsh reaction from those whom it offends? Do not be fooled by the provocations of the Evil Empire.
IN third In the post, the club employees decided to show what their real announcements look like:
In fact, it is very sad that because of inadequate neighbors, we have been forced for the second year to fight for the opportunity to live, work and relax. We believe in victory and the resumption of noisy parties in peaceful Kyiv. In the meantime, our real announcements look like this [as shown in the following stories].
Shortly on the same day, a video with a refutation recorded Akhmad Akhmedov - president All-Ukrainian Congress of the Peoples of Dagestan. According to him, information about the party from Russian-language Telegram channels is a lie: “This is simply an escalation and pitting our peoples against each other.”
On the afternoon of August 16, my notes with the headings “Cannibal dances. A nightclub in Kyiv announced a party "Fiery Makhachkala"" and "Kiev night club announced a party "Fiery Makhachkala"" newspapers published "Arguments and facts"("AiF") and "Moskovsky Komsomolets" respectively. At the same time, they clarified that “the announcement lasted a day, and the club administration deleted it. They pretended that nothing like this ever happened, but the Internet remembers everything.” Let us note once again that stories are displayed on the profile for exactly 24 hours, and then disappear from the feed, while only one screenshot of the announcement is distributed on the Internet. AiF also wrote that “even Ukrainian patriots did not believe the simple excuses and continue to harass the establishment so that they curtail their parties.” However, at the time of publication of the newspaper’s material, only one comment with indignation could be found on the club’s social networks, and its author later apologized.
“Verified” noticed that on the morning of August 16, three posts about the event scheduled for August 26 disappeared on the club’s Instagram. We asked for a comment from a representative of the establishment and received the following response: “They are temporarily in the archive, we will restore them soon. People see the fire on the poster and, not paying attention to the date, think that this is the same fake poster.” “Some people are told it’s fake several times before they even read the answer. Then they apologize and wish victory to Ukraine. Unfortunately, we will not convey the truthful information to everyone, but many do not need this,” the second message says.
It is noteworthy that some of the publications with the fake poster contain the logo of the “Shaman Rahu” channel or it is clear that it was carelessly erased (this is clear not only from the distortion of the frame, but also from the green stripe on the shoulder of the fire show participant). However, in some posts there are no traces of the logo or its removal. This suggests that there were at least two sources of distribution of the counterfeit. For example, a poster without a logo appeared in the Telegram channel “Communication Hub” (53,000 views) on August 15 at 21:31, and 22 minutes later in the “Systemic Pesticide” channel (310,000) the same images posted indicating that they were sent by an anonymous “angry subscriber.”
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: social networks / collage “Verified”
- Is it true that the mayor of Riga is closing the Russian Theater to open a gay club?
- Is the order to suspend mobilization in Dagestan true?
- Is it true that nine-story buildings were built en masse in the USSR because fire truck ladders did not rise higher?
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please let us know by highlighting the error text and clicking Ctrl+Enter.
