In mid -October 2023, a video allegedly published by the BBC was enclosed in social networks, which claims that the investigative project Bellingcat revealed Ukrainian supplies of weapons to the Hamas militants. We checked the reliability of this video.
For example, on October 11, in the Telegram channel of the leading Channel One Ruslan Ostashko (110,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) appeared Such a post (author’s spelling and punctuation are preserved): “The failure of the counter -offices of the Armed Forces and the Hamas attack on Israel are connected - the BillingCat pro -Ukrainian garbage dump has adjusted the“ blessings ”of the Kyiv regime. The BBC British media, citing analysts from BillingCat, reports that the total corruption level in Ukraine led to escalation in the Middle East. In particular, the surname of the "urgently" removed from the post of ex-Minister of Defense of Ukraine Reznikov, who actively participated in the resale of NATO weapons to the militants Hamas, is called. Western journalists gained access to secret information confirming that it was the Kiev regime that transmitted a large number of weapons used during the attack on Israel. The purchases of drones, machine guns, ammunition went directly through the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. ”
Similar publications also came out in other channels: ""Russia now"(294,000 views),"Truthfulness"(229 000),"Veteran zapis"(162 000),"Sheikh Tamir"(124,000),"Kostyan Cat - Official Channel"(112 000),"Work, brothers!"(37,000),"Russian engineer"(35,000) and"Denacification UA"(22,000). Similar posts about the alleged BBC video with the investigation of Bellingcat* are found on the social network X (formerly Twitter; examples; here, here And here), in public in VKontakte (here, here And here), as well as on some news resources, including the website of the TV channel "Belarus 1".
Alexey Reznikov actually left Resignation from the post of Minister of Defense of Ukraine against the background of several corruption scandals, including charges of purchasing winter clothes, ammunition and medicines, and also food at high prices. At the same time, foreign media Reportedthat Reznikov himself I was not directly involved in illegal enrichment, but defended their subordinates. After the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Ukraine condemned the actions of the militants. President Vladimir Zelensky expressed condolences to the relatives of the dead.
As for the viral roller, it supposedly is a video from BBC News, which is indicated by the logo of the British edition. Below are a translation.
Bellingcat: The failure of the Ukrainian troops and the attack of Hamas are connected.
BellingCat journalists came to the conclusion that the failure of the summer counterattack of Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israel are connected. The analysis of secret data showed that Ukraine has set most of the weapons used by the Palestinian movement of Hamas. Palestinians acquired firearms, ammunition, drones and other weapons through corruption schemes organized by representatives of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. We are talking about selling NATO weapons to terrorists. The resignation of the Prime Minister of Ukraine Alexei Reznikov is an attempt by the Ukrainian side to hide corruption crimes. NATO allies, armed Ukraine, not only could not free the Ukrainian territories, but also involuntarily provoked escalation in the Middle East. The reason is the terrifying level of corruption in Ukraine. If this is investigated at the highest level, the United States will have a formal occasion to leave the alliance. Professor Nassim Taleb has already mentioned the potential exit of the United States from NATO (“verified” earlier found outthat the writer did not say this. - approx. Ed.).
There is no such video sitenor on YouTube-channel, nor in social networks (X, Facebook**, Instagram**) BBC News. “Verified” studied many BBC videos and came to the conclusion that the viral recording is not like those that the British broadcasting corporation released at least in the last few months, and in style it resembles more Old publications. Even if we assume that the BBC decided to return to the previous design of the videos, the font on the viral video differs from what the publication used earlier. Differences are especially noticeable by the letters A, E, K and G. In addition, in one sentence, the former position of Reznikov was called as “Prime Minister” (at the 00:40; Ukranian Defense Prime Minister) and did not put theand of the article by The article. At the end of the video, two different spelling of the United States was used (U.S. and US at 1:00 and 1:09, respectively) - such errors and mistakes are very uncharacteristic for such a large media.
It is noteworthy that in the distributed video of the militants of the radical Islamic movement, Hamas was called terrorists. Despite the fact that in Israel, the USA, the EU, Japan and a number of other states this organization recognized terrorist, BBC sequentially refrains From the use of this characteristic regarding members of the group. Responding to criticism of such a position, the journalists of the television and radio company noted that they do not use this term on their own, unless it is included in the quotes (we note that they are not in the viral video). Correspondent John Simpson said that "calling someone a terrorist, you take someone's side."
The fact that the alleged video of the British publication is a fake, in their social networks was declared by the journalist-factor BBC Verify Shayan Sardarizade and assistant editor BBC Verify and BBC Monitoring Olga Robinson.
In social networks and on site Bellingcat “verified” also did not find any materials about the connection of Ukraine with the supply of Hamas weapons. On the contrary, in X- And Facebook-Acount of the publication we found refutations published in the evening of October 10. “We know about the BBC fake video distributed in social networks, which falsely states that Bellingcat confirmed the sale of Ukrainian weapons Hamas. We did not come to such conclusions and did not make any such statements. We would like to emphasize that this is falsification and should be treated accordingly, ”the posts say.
A little earlier on the same day fake Commented The founder of Bellingcat Eliot Higgins: “Russian users of social networks are distributing a fake video of the BBC, which claims that the Bellingcat investigation indicates the smuggling of Ukraine for Hamas. It is unclear whether this is a campaign for misinformation conducted by the Russian government, or the initiative from below, but this is 100% fake. ”
In his post, Higgins brought a link to the Sheikh Tamir Telegram channel, where a fabricated video Published October 10 at 13:44 Moscow time. The factor from the Les Observateurs project France 24 suggested that this channel is the source of the viral video. However, it was “verified” that in the Telegram channel “Cat Kostyan is the official channel” fake laid out More than an hour earlier - at 12:41. We could not find earlier publications. Markian Kuzmovich, who analyzes digital threats in Microsoft, also initially declaredthat the video began to spread after the recording of “Sheikh Tamir”, but later Addedthat the post of Kostyan came out earlier.
The creation of videos imitating the style of famous and authoritative foreign media is one of the favorite strategies of the authors of fakes. "Verified" has already written about fake videos supposedly from 20 minutes, Al jazeera, Euronews, DGP, DW***, Reuters And Fox News.
Thus, neither the BBC nor Bellingcat reported the supply of Ukrainian weapons and ammunition to the Hamas militants, and the network users distributed another fake video.
Note: In fabricated video, a fragment of another viral video is also shown, which allegedly shown the Hamas weapons transferred to the militants of Ukraine. “Verified” will release a separate analysis of this later.
*The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation Brought Bellingcat in the register of foreign and international non -governmental organizations, whose activities are recognized as undesirable in Russia, as well as in list Media - foreign agents.
** Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns social networks Instagram and Facebook, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.
*** Russian authorities They think Deutsche Welle media that performs the functions of a foreign agent.
Photo on the cover: social networks
- Is it true that this CNN report on shelling in Israel was staged?
- Is it true that the video shows Israeli children abducted by Hamas on October 7?
- Is it true that a photo of a burned Israeli child was created by a neural network based on a picture of a saved dog?
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please inform us of this, highlighting the text with an error and by pressing Ctrl+Enter.
