In mid -January 2025, the Internet dispersed that California fires destroyed several villas belonging to a high -ranking Ukrainian military. We decided to check how reasonably this message is.
The fact that in California the fire caused damage to the elite real estate of the Ukrainian generals, told ""Gazeta.ru" Lenta.ru, "Moscow Komsomolets" Life.ru, "Komsomolskaya Truth"And other Russian media. The burned villas and their owners were also discussed by users of social networks ("VKontakte" X, Facebook) and the platform blog ("Picabu","Zen"). At the same time, the authors of publications emphasized that the mansions were built on funds allocated by West countries for military support of Ukraine. In a similar spirit, the news was lit by many large Telegram channels: ""Putin in Telegram"(201,000 views at the time of writing this analysis),"Ostashko! Important"(181 000),"Ukraine.ru"(148 000),"Sheikh Tamir"(141 000),"Kirill Fedorov / War History Weapons"(123,000) and others.
At the time of writing this analysis Fires in Los Angeles and his suburbs, which are raging from January 7 and which US President Joe Biden already He called it the most destructive in the history of California, completely Destroyed or damaged More than 12,000 buildings, including residential buildings, schools and administrative buildings. Media ReportedThat many Hollywood stars lost their mansions in fire: Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson, Jeff Bridges and others. However, neither in local, nor Ukrainian, nor in authoritative international media was able to find news about the burned real estate of Ukrainian military.
The earliest publication of this information, which was found "verified"-a post in the Telegram channel "Military observer"(74,000 views), which appeared on January 11, 2025 at 20:07 Moscow time. Most of the Russian media who wrote on this subject refer to this source. The authors of the post, in turn, claim that they took information from certain Ukrainian resources, but they do not give either their name or link. It was not possible to detect earlier publications on this subject - Ukrainian or any others - as already mentioned above,. But after a few minutes similar posts appeared in others pro -Russian channels. At the same time, the "military observer" has been more than once Strengthened In the distribution of misinformation and in many cases, submitted it for news from Ukrainian sources.
TO Some (much more rare) posts in Telegram attached a 35-second video with the United24 logo-a platform launched by the Ukrainian authorities to collect donations for the needs of a warring country. The first such publication appeared about 15 minutes after the message of the "military observer", it was placed in the channel "Odessa Za Victory!"(10,000 views).
The video mainly is a slide show of pictures taken, presumably, during California fires, which are accompanied by orders. The news itself is stated in English subtitles. Although they largely repeat the post of “military observer”, some details are given there: for example, that the mansions were allegedly acquired from April 2022 to February 2024 and belonged to the members of the team of the former Commander -in -Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny (who exactly is not revealed). If you believe the video, the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine has already requested information about the details of the transaction from the American colleagues, and the commander of the APU Ground Forces Mikhail Drapaty commented on the situation as follows: “When you steal money from people fighting for their lives, be ready that the fire of war will reach you even on another continent.”
Although the video contains the United24 logo, nor site this crowdfunding platform, nor on site her media units, neither on her YouTube channelnor in social networks There is nothing similar to the viral video. On January 12, the Center for Combating Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine published in its official account in X refutation The fact that United24 has ever released a similar video. “The purpose of this lie is to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” - noted In the department. However, the content part of the video does not understand in detail in the center’s messages.
“Verified” could not be confirmed by open sources and other information set forth in the video. In particular, the office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine did not report in his official press releasesthat he contacted the American authorities about the burned mansions of Ukrainian generals. A quote of drapata is also absent in open sources, it can be found exclusively in the distributed video.
The creation of fake news reports with logos of authoritative international media is a popular technique of fake -ups, which allows you to increase the confidence of the audience in thus disinformation. "Verified" has already repeatedly disassembled such videos - for example, from Reuters, Fox News, Euronews and others, and especially often "gets" BBC. How Notes The Ukrainian Factics -Conging project Stopfake, in recent months with the same purposes, the United24 project began to be used.
Thus, “verified” could not find any sources that deserve trustworthy, which would say that the houses of senior Ukrainian troops were really injured or completely destroyed in California fires. The source of the news is the post of pro-Russian Telegram channel, which has previously been repeatedly seen in the spread of misinformation about Ukraine, and according to the same scenario-with reference to the unaware Ukrainian sources.
Photo on the cover: Pacific Southwest Forest Service, USDA from USA, Public Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons
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