In early December 2023, Russian social networks and messengers filled panic warnings about mined objects that Ukrainian saboteurs allegedly scatter near schools. We checked how true these messages are.
Was there an attempt to attack at school in Balabanov?
In the early days of December 2023, grandmothers, teachers and officials began to massively spread a panic message - supposedly near school No. 1 in Balabanov (apparently, this refers to a small city in the Kaluga region) found a miniature explosive device wrapped in a bill.
Although the authors of panic reposts are sure that the attempt of the attack was stopped recently - at the end of November, the search for the Yandex Pictures service shows: nine months ago, at the end of February 2023, the same picture with a similar warning began to spread in the parental chats of the Borovsky district of the Kaluga region, where, in fact, the city of Balabanovo is located.
In the evening of February 28, 2023 Borovsky District Information Center and public "News of the Borovsky district"On VKontakte, they refuted the veracity of this message with reference to law enforcement agencies. It can be assumed that the authorities simply hid the truth and there was still an explosive device, but there are no information and reports of real witnesses on the network that such a find generally took place.
As it usually happens, the refutations have been reassured by few, and the story continued to spread on the Internet. In the process, it changed, and this is one of the important signs of a fake. To maintain a panic mood, the authors of the reposts removed the school in Balabanov from the story and began to insert the references to other places where messages were distributed, for example, the Ivanovo region and Saratov.
In addition, in the example of the Ivanovo region, another characteristic feature of fake news is noticeable - typification, that is, the transition of the event from the category of single to the category of typical. Read: “On the territory of the Ivanovo region were discovered Mini explosives ”-that is, we have before us a description of regular villainous actions, and not one-time, as in Balaban history.
And the mines are "petals" near schools?
Messages about explosive devices wrapped in bills, which are supposedly scattered near Russian schools, are only one of several similar ones. In the parental chats, back in August 2022, a similar warning was distributed about the “petals” mines, which Ukrainian saboteurs allegedly scatter near educational institutions. Similar posts arose against the backdrop of a large number of publications of “military commissars” about the “petals” mines, which, it was statement, scatter the Ukrainian military in a self-proclaimed DPR.
August 17–18 last year Shelling Belgorod region from Ukraine, and at the same time in parental chats in this region passes A wave of messages about mines-"petals" near schools. By words The governor of the region Vyacheslav Gladkov, such shells were found on the territory of Shebekinsky district. There is no independent evidence of this information.
On August 18, after shelters of Shebekin and panic messages about the "petals" near the schools, a screenshot of the message appears in one of the messengers, the author was indicated by a certain Marina Mishchenko. In the photo, the mine is already small and round. Subsequently, the screenshot was circumcised, the name of the sender was gone, and the picture began to be distributed in other regions of Russia.
Why did Mina become different? Because this photograph has nothing to do with either the Belgorod region, or to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The picture was taken from published in 2010 Making manuals, and before us is the Italian anti-personnel high-explosive mine pressure SB33 Jane's Mines and Mine Clerance 1999-00. Even the hand in both photographs is the same.
Why do you need to do such manipulations? Because you need to convince everyone of great danger for children, and a photo with a mine on the hand is better than a photograph of some kind of “petal”. It looks smaller and more dangerous, it can be mistaken for a headphone or flattened ball. Therefore, the goodness, who was the first to use this picture, apparently acted in the logic, “credibility is better than truth” - in such panic warnings, the truth is well sold and conveyed, but that which is more effectively frightened.
And whether the hands were torn off with bombs hidden in the passport, passerby in Voronezh and warrant officer in Kursk?
Publications in social networks about mines near Russian schools are a kind of reincarnation of a wider plot, which spread in social networks more than a year ago. Then Internet users said that Ukrainian saboteurs began to mask explosive devices for toys, balls, mobile phones, tablets and documents. In one of these texts, they talked about a terrorist attack in Kursk, where a certain ensign seemed to lose his hands after raising a mined passport. In a similar story from Voronezh, a simple passerby allegedly became the victims.
The Kursk option is the earliest, it appeared in social networks of the south of Russia in May 2022. This story is relatively emotional and illiterate, probably it is intended for internal use (“we have one warrant officer”). The mention of the title of the victim suggests that the text originally appeared in a military chat. On May 12, a resident of Krasnodar placed it on his VKontakte page.
And on August 25, after more than three months, an edited “Voronezh” version appears in the “Odnoklassniki” (unfortunately, all the first publications are not available). It is widely distributed to the regions of the Russian Federation, and sometimes the text is presented as message Unified duty dispatch service of Voronezh. There are no confirmations of these terrorist attacks (and this can hardly be silent).
Such stories - Is this a mass phenomenon?
The above stories are not just fake, but also very popular news. It is almost impossible to track how many times they were sent in the WhatsApp and Viber messengers, where the main stream of such communications passes. However, if users of messengers are faced with something frightening, then one of them will definitely share information on social networks. People who want to draw attention to the problem begin to repose information, and the popularity of these publications can be evaluated using the Social Media Listening services.
The Medialogi program, which uploaded keywords in all four stories, shows how 211,000 “visible” reposts of these rumors on social networks were distributed. However, absolute numbers do not matter much. It is more important to understand when the stories about Ukrainian saboteurs were in demand. This is the end of summer and autumn 2022 (when mobilization was first discussed in the Russian Federation at first), then in February-March and, finally, December 2023. More than 75% of users who reposted information about disguised mines and bombs are women, which is also understandable, because it is they who often take on a warning about everyday dangers associated with children.
It is significant that in the screenshots that were dismantled above, there are never dates. Therefore, when the participant in the parental chat receives a similar message, it seems to him that this is absolutely fresh and relevant information. Its constant distribution creates a panic background and a stable feeling that the enemies are already nearby, they are selected for our children. For people who support Russia's military operations against Ukraine, such stories are an argument why aggression should continue. As a result, the waves of such panic mailings flare up again and again.
- bombs in the form of toys - a military horror story?
Stories about bombs in the form of toys or objects of everyday life is not an innovation. During the Afghan war of the USSR and the USA They accused each other in use Such shells, but the reliability of this was not confirmed. Some experts They are questioned The existence of such bombs aimed specially at Afghan children.
Nevertheless, the plot about the toys has become a historical myth and is now actively used in publications about a wide variety of wars. So, in May 2020 "RIA Novosti" released A large article “The atrocities of the Nazis near Leningrad: explosives in toys and poison for patients”, which directly stated that Finnish pilots bombarded the Leningrad region with bombs in the form of toys:
Not satisfied with the artillery and air bombing, the Finnish bastards used the forms of villainous atrocities in the form of dumping from the aircraft of children's toys that were filled with explosive substances, and at the moment when the children raised these toys, there were explosions, as a result of which the children died or received injuries, remaining punches.
The article, the author claims, is based on declassified documents from the archives of the FSB of the Russian Federation, and the scans of some of them are even represented in the material. However, the document from which the quote about bombs is allegedly taken is not presented in the text, as well as a link to it. It is possible that the journalist came up with this story, relying on later rumors about the Afghan war.
***
Thus, all panic messages about bombs scattered by saboteurs on the streets of Russian cities and disguised as everyday objects or covered with money are not confirmed. There are no witnesses who would see this, there are no reports of the authorities and reports of journalists about what happened or prevented terrorist attacks. The texts-preliminaries have been distributing on the Internet for more than a year, and details are constantly changing in them (for example, the same photograph can be issued for the shot in different cities). At least in one case, a picture of the 2010 military manual was used as a picture of a bomb from the Russian school.
Photo on the cover: Wikimedia Commons
- V. Aksyonov. The war of patriotisms. Propaganda and mass moods in Russia
- A. Arkhipova, A. Kirzyuk. Dangerous Soviet things: city legends and fears in the USSR
- J. Hayward. Myths & Legends of the First World War
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