In September 2024, a screenshot of a post by blogger Sergei Sternenko on the social network X was distributed on Telegram channels, in which he explained the 2001 terrorist attack as a divine punishment for the United States for too slow arms deliveries to Ukraine in 2024. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.

The screenshot began to be widely distributed on Telegram on September 11, the anniversary of the terrorist attack. Judging by the image, user X Sergei Sternenko (@sternenko) wrote a few hours earlier: “Slowness in making decisions regarding arms supplies is a tragedy for our country. Every day of delay means new victims among our citizens that could have been avoided. We are grateful for the help, but Ukraine does not have time to wait - people are dying right now. Therefore, the September 11 terrorist attack is karma and divine punishment. “In the end, fewer people died then than Ukrainians are dying now due to the slow supply of weapons.” The authors of the viral posts call Sternenko a Ukrainian volunteer. The screenshot was published by such Telegram channels as “KB"(230,000 views at the time of writing the analysis), "Uncle Slava"(187,000), "Petya the First"(83,000), "Isn't it a Russian bear?» (44,000), "PMC Wagner"(28,000). One of the publications that quotes the contents of the screenshot, reposted the “War on Fake” channel (95,000), positioning itself as a fact-checking project.

Sergei Sternenko is a Ukrainian activist and blogger. He gained widespread fame in 2013–2014 when took part in the events of the Revolution of Dignity, and then at the age of 19 headed a recently created cell of the nationalist organization “Right Sector” in Odessa. Subsequently Sternenko ripped off Ukrainian concerts artists, who previously performed in Russia, participated during the blockade of annexed Crimea in 2015 and launched a petition demanding that Russian citizens be banned from entering the country in 2021. In the same year, activist sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for kidnapping and torture local pro-Russian MP (some Ukrainian human rights activists called the persecution of Sternenko is politically motivated). Based on the results of the appeal hearing, the court partially canceled sentence, replacing the sentence with a year of suspended imprisonment. The activist was also accused of murder by exceeding the limits of necessary self-defense, the case closed in 2023 after eight years of proceedings. After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sternenko became a volunteer and also continued to blog on various platforms. There he talks, among other things, about the course of hostilities. He has channel YouTube has almost 2 million subscribers, and Telegram - more than 800,000. In his blogs, Sternenko is actively raising funds for the purchase of drones for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Among his posts one can indeed find publications critical of Ukraine’s allies. For example, in mid-July an activist stated in his Telegram channel that the White House policy is “not to let Ukraine win or lose.”

Screenshot of post from Telegram channel Sternenko

Sternenko also criticized European leaders for their slowness on the issue of arms supplies - for example, at the beginning of 2023 he expressed an opinionthat French President Emmanuel Macron could have been more decisive in supporting Ukraine.

The activist talks a lot about the war not only on Telegram, but also on the social network X, where he signed 400,000 users. Sternenko’s posts are mainly devoted to raising funds for the purchase of drones for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and impromptu reports on their use. Tweets on other topics are relatively rare on the blog and mostly relate directly to the course of hostilities. Moreover, if a post should attract the attention of foreign readers or is addressed to Ukraine’s allies, Sternenko usually uses not Ukrainian, but English.

"Verified" failed find in Sternenko’s profile on the social network X a tweet about September 11, a screenshot of which was distributed across pro-Russian Telegram channels. The image does not indicate the date of publication, but it is noted that the post was posted nine hours before the unknown person took the screenshot. At the same time, everyone who wrote about Sternenko’s alleged post about the 2001 terrorist attack attached the same screenshot: it matches not only the time of publication, but also the number of replays, likes, reposts and views. Considering that the activist has an audience of thousands on X, it is unlikely that in at least nine hours, only one subscriber was able to take a screenshot. It is noteworthy that there is no link to the tweet itself anywhere, which makes it impossible to check the saved copies of the post in the Internet Archive. The latest archived copy of Sternenko’s profile at the time of writing this analysis done June 26, 2024.

The earliest publication that contains a viral screenshot that Verified was able to detect is appeared September 11 at 20:28 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Bear” (7500 views). This channel has previously been repeatedly mentioned in our analyzes as distributor And original source disinformation about Ukraine.

This is not the first time that pro-Kremlin Telegram channels and media outlets have disseminated fake screenshots of posts allegedly published by Ukrainians on social networks. For example, similar resources told about a cooking class in which children were allegedly taught how to cook the “Burning Crocus” dish, with a link to a doctored screenshot of Instagram stories.

Cover photo: social networks