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At the end of March 2025, shortly after the attack with a knife on passers -by in the center of the Netherlands capital, information broke up on the network that the suspect in this attack was a fighter of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who was in Amsterdam in the treatment. We checked the reliability of this news.

March 27 on the Ladies Square in the center of Amsterdam man attacked with a knife on passers -by and wounded Five people. Suspect Detained The British tourist, who, having heard a noise and noticing a runaway man, chased him, tumbled him to the ground and held him until the police arrived.

Two days later, the information spread in the media and Telegram channels that the Ukrainian military allegedly turned out to be the attacked. The network claims that he arrived in the Netherlands for treatment after a combat wound. It is clarified that the motives of the attack remain unknown, but the Dutch authorities are trying to hush up the case and keep silent about belonging to the attacker to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Such publications have been released "Tsargrad" News.ru And Eadailyas well as Telegram channels "Anatoly Shariy"(1.1 million views at the time of writing this analysis),"Operation Z: Warrixes of Russian Spring"(515 000),"KB"(238,000),"Belarusian security officer"(170 000),"Dmitry Vasilet"(116 000), Rus_criminal (106,000), "Alexander Semchenko"(84,000) and others.

On the morning of March 29, the Amsterdam police reportedthat established the identity of the attacker. It turned out to be a 30-year-old Ukrainian, a native of the Donetsk region. Identification of the suspect took a lot of time, because with detention He found fake documents for different names, and he refused to name the present. April 1, the man appeared before the court, after which representatives of the prosecutor's office They said: The attacker could have terrorist motifs, but his exact intentions are still being established. As often happens after such resonant events, on the day of the incident, different information about the personality of the criminal began to spread on social networks. In the evening of March 27, a few hours after the attack, only users X And Facebook wrote that the suspect was a Turk, others - Muslim. A little later appeared Another version: Bloggers steel approvethat the attacker is a 34-year-old citizen of Ukraine, a native of Odessa named D. Melnik. Similar publications were scored on social networks of the 10 tens of thousands of views, although no evidence or links to sources was presented.

Official information that the detainee is a citizen of Ukraine, appeared Only on March 29 on the official pages of the Amsterdam police in social networks. They reported that the suspect was a 30-year-old native of the Donetsk region, and noted that while the investigation is going on, they could not reveal his name and other details. Later Dutch edition De Telegraaf Wrotethat, according to their own investigation, the attacker, D. Roman, “verified”, studied the affordable pictures of the detainee using the Pimeyes person to recognize, but could not identify this person by issuing him.

The resources that called the attacking the Ukrainian military refer to the Netherlands allegedly reporting this. It is noted that, according to them, the suspect came to the Netherlands for treatment, and subsequently information appeared that his rehabilitation was associated with a combat wound. At the same time, no source provided links to such notes or screenshots.

Judging by the official statements of the police who attacked Registered In a hotel in Amsterdam on March 26, a day before the attack. How long he was in the Netherlands before that and for what purpose he arrived in the country is unknown. After the attack on the Dam Square, the man was first sent to the hospital, because during the detention he injured his leg, and then transferred to prison.

On March 29, the Amsterdam police told about all these details, on the same day, information began to disseminate that the treatment of a suspect in the Netherlands was connected with his service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Apparently, the resources that published such notes either misunderstood or deliberately distorted the part of the press release that concerned the hospitalization of the detainee.

“Verified” failed to find any of any authoritative Dutch source that reported the service of the attacker in the Armed Forces. Mostly how international, so Dutch The media writing about the incident in Amsterdam focus on the fact that the detainee is a native of the Donetsk region. At the same time, it is still not known whether he lived in this region recently, and if he lived, then where: in the territory occupied by Russia or controlled by Ukraine. It is only confirmed that the suspect has Ukrainian citizenship. Representative of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine George Tikhiy reportedthat the embassy in the Netherlands is in close contact with law enforcement agencies and is trying to find out when and why this person came to Amsterdam.

Information about the service of the suspect in the Armed Forces of Ukraine spread mainly in Russian -speaking sources. The earliest post among those that managed to find "verified", appeared In the Anatoly Shary Telegram channel on March 29 at 14:17 Moscow time (that is, two hours after the press release of the Amsterdam police) and scored more than 1 million views. Shary also wrote that the day after the attacker’s citizenship became known, the media tried to distort the information by introducing the man a separatist from the Donetsk region. This argument raises questions, given that between the publication of the Amsterdam police, in which the suspect’s citizenship was first officially confirmed, and only a few hours passed the Shary post. Its channel is regularly It appears In the analysis of “verified” as a distributor and primary source of false information.

Subsequently, the information from the post of Sharia spread in other pro-Kremlin Telegram channels and the media, after which it Picked up and in Xwhere it has overgrown with new (also unconfirmed) details: for example, some users They wroteThat the suspect was treated in Poland, and not in the Netherlands.

Thus, all the information that is currently available in the attack on people in the center of Amsterdam is limited to the fact that he has Ukrainian citizenship and that he is a native of the Donetsk region. Amsterdam and the Dutch media did not provide other data. The fact of his service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and, moreover, the rehabilitation in the Netherlands after wound is not confirmed by authoritative sources, and for the first time he appeared in the pro-Kromelev segment of Telegram without any evidence.

Photo on the cover: Wikimedia Commons

Update dated June 11, 2025: On the eve of the Dutch public broadcaster Nos released An investigation about a man who attacked passers -by in Amsterdam in March. According to journalists, the suspect is a citizen of Ukraine Roman D., who joined the Armed Forces no later than 2019. In 2023, he received a severe head injury after the explosion of the shell and was transferred to an administrative position. NOS managed to talk with his former colleagues, who recalled that Roman became more and more in himself and more than once expressed a desire to be in a European prison - according to him, there are good conditions of detention. Sources told reporters that the man studied the legislation of different countries in order to understand how life imprisonment could be achieved there. Roman’s mother, who was living in the Czech Republic, reported that he was able to get permission for short -term leave to visit the family, but did not come: according to her, they did not communicate since the beginning of a full -scale invasion.

The NOS investigation indicates that the attacking passers -by really served in the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces and at least 15 months before received fighting, but does not confirm that he was undergoing rehabilitation in the Netherlands or another EU country. "Verified" continues to monitor the situation. We will probably clarify the verdict after the appearance of official comments on the Netherlands police or the start of the trial in this case. The previous version of the analysis can be found Here.