At the end of September 2023, a report circulated that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had addressed the Russian army, asking it to “play by the rules.” We checked to see if the US official said something similar.

Telegram channels wrote about Austin’s appeal to Russian military personnel on September 26 and 27 “Sanya in Florida"(398,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Reverse Side Of The Medal (333,000), "Putin on Telegram"(213,000) and, according to the TGStat service, about 400 more channels. “Repetition of the situation with the German Leopards, when they announced hunting is unacceptable, I saw these calls on the Internet. Play by the rules,” bloggers quote Austin. About the words allegedly spoken by the head of the Pentagon he wrote “Moskovsky Komsomolets" And row other pro-Russian Media, the quote was also shared by users Facebook And "VKontakte"

None of the above publications in the media and social networks contain a link to the original source, which would say where, when and under what circumstances Austin said the quote distributed by Internet users. “Verified” could not find this or any similar statement from the American military in any verified Austin's social media account X (formerly Twitter), nor on website The Pentagon, nor in major American media.

About the Abrams Lloyd Austin spoke at the 15th meeting of the Contact Group on the Defense of Ukraine, which took place in Germany on September 19. The American Secretary of Defense spoke about the assistance that the United States is providing to Kyiv and announced the imminent transfer of Abrams to the Ukrainian military (these tanks are the White House promised send the Ukrainian Armed Forces back in January). But the call to refrain from “hunting” the Abrams, also addressed to the Russian military, was not in his speech.

A keyword search on the English-speaking Internet leads to the social network X, where the quote appeared on September 25 in the account @AlbertSam786067. In English she didn't receive widespread. At the same time, the text of the tweet itself is a direct (probably machine) translation of the earliest “Verified” source of the quote found - the Telegram channel “But my Yandex wallet.” There's a publication appeared September 25 at 14:50 Moscow time, shortly after messages that the first batch of promised American tanks has arrived in Ukraine.

Screenshots of publications and machine translation option from Yandex

This is not the first time that this channel has been the primary source of viral disinformation messages, including in the media. “Verified” wrote about more than a dozen fictitious stories that first appeared on this channel, but were then passed off as real in the media and other media. Among them, for example, is a publication about the words of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who allegedly asked Russians take sanctions more seriously, and the call to African countries to starve for the sake of independence, assigned To the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell. The description of the channel “But my Yandex wallet” directly states: “Parody, satire on political reality. Only verified fakes,” however, judging by the number of posts accepted as truth, this disclaimer is ignored by many Internet users, bloggers and media workers.

Cover photo: U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jack Sanders