At the beginning of April 2024, a video was distributed on social networks in which a wild animal was filmed attacking a man. The authors of pro-Kremlin channels claim that what happened happened in the west of Ukraine, and see hidden meanings in what is happening. We checked what kind of video it was and where it was filmed.
The viral video is just under two minutes long. First, the boar knocks the man to the ground, and then gores and tramples him, tearing the victim’s clothes. About halfway through the video, the victim managed to get up and find a stick, with which he was eventually able to fight off the beast. The captions for the video indicate that the incident occurred in Western Ukraine. The authors of some publications clarify that we are talking about Khmelnitskaya region, others call the city itself the scene of action Khmelnitsky or Khmelnitsky district.
According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, more than 130 posts with this video were posted on Telegram, in total they received about 1.7 million views. Some authors wrotethat a wild boar attack is “revenge for Belgorod,” and others called the animal is a military werewolf (TCC is a territorial recruitment center, an analogue of military registration and enlistment offices in Ukraine). Similar publications appeared in the channels “Russia now"(266,000 views), "Uncle Slava"(218,000), Voblya (175,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(141,000), "Gossip"(109,000), "Alexander Semchenko"(108,000), "Banned"(100,000), "Angry journalist" (73,000) and "Gasparyan"(63,000). Author of the channel "Uncle Max news"(4700) saw an allegory in the video: "The pig will become impudent and attack the person until the person takes a stick and shows the pig strength. We're somewhere at the end of this video. But our pig just won’t leave. At the end we will roast the pig and eat it.” Similar posts appeared on VKontakte (examples here, here, here And here), social network X (here, here And here) and Odnoklassniki (one of posts received 280,000 views).
Judging by the caption at the top of the video, the wild boar attack occurred in the afternoon of March 24, 2024. There are no identifying marks or landmarks that could be used to determine the location in the video. In this regard, “Verified” used a reverse search on the screenshot and found that the same incident was reported on March 27 British And American editors of the tabloid The Sun.
The materials of these publications contained a video of the same duration as in the Telegram channels, but it turned out that in Russian-language publications the video was cropped. On The Sun's version, hieroglyphs are visible at the entrance to the house, and in the text of the tabloid it saysthat a boar attacked an elderly man in a Chinese province Sichuan. The victim, a 70-year-old man, was reportedly taken to hospital with serious back and spinal injuries, but is now in stable condition.
“Verified” found out that the video from The Sun’s material was also cropped and trimmed. We found the original version on the Newsflare website - according to description, it stores videos shot by non-professional cameramen and available for purchase by online publications. Full recording lasts almost eight minutes, and it turned out that the boar did not leave the local area, as it might seem from the ending of the fragment that became viral. At the 04:44 mark, the animal attacked another person, causing the previously attacked man to again enter into confrontation with the animal.
Newsflare clarified that the incident was captured by a CCTV camera in a village located in the urban district Guangyuan. Reportedthat the boar first attacked an elderly man, and then his niece, who came to the rescue.
The secretary of the village party branch, introduced in the video description as Mr. Luo, toldthat among the injuries sustained by the man were wounds inflicted by fangs and damage to the lumbar spine, and the niece had several broken ribs due to the fall. According to the official, such attacks by wild boars are unprecedented in the area. Local forestry officials assured that they would take measures to prevent such incidents.
According to TGStat, the first post with a viral video and a mention of the Khmelnitsky region appeared on April 3 at 19:59 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Ukraine news"(10,000 views), and a few minutes later a similar publication was posted on the Ukrainian channel "All-Seeing Eye 18+"(92,000 views; the post was deleted after almost two hours).
Cover photo: video screenshot
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