On April 13th, the Facebook user “Roman Nasonov” posted a video with the following caption: “And here is the first American Lieutenant-General arrested in Mariupol today. The mood is happy, he is going to say a lot, he promised to surrender everyone. I repeat, everyone.”
April 9th, an identical video was also published by a Twitter user. The author claims that the general surrendered to the Russian Armed Forces. The same video about the capture of the general was shared by the YouTube channel “Джон Сильвер.”
The video shows how a man is detained by the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSS). The face of the detainee is blurred and therefore it is impossible to identify him. At the same time, in the left corner of the video, there is a photo of the Commander of the NATO Allied Land Forces – Lieutenant General Roger Cloutier, giving the impression that the footage shows the arrest of a NATO general.
The claim that Lieutenant General Roger L. Cloutier Jr. was arrested in Mariupol is disinformation. In fact, the video shows footage of the arrest of a Ukrainian citizen by the Federal Security Service of Russia in Crimea. In addition, the video is altered using a software and does not include the picture of General Roger Cloutier in the authentic version. The Lieutenant General is currently in Izmir.
The disseminated video is taken from the website of the Russian state media РИА НОВОСТИ. In the authentic version of the video, the photo of the American general does not appear in the shot and was later added using a software. The outlet published the information about the detention of a Ukrainian citizen in Crimea on April 7th. The article, which is accompanied by a video of the arrest, states that a soldier of the Crimean Tatar – Noman Chelebijikhan Battalion, who was trying to sneak into the territory of the Crimea (Russian-occupied territory), was arrested by the FSS officers in March. The Chelebijikhan Battalion is considered to be an illegal armed formation in Russia. According to the FSS, the detainee was supplying food to the battalion.
General Roger L. Cloutier Jr. is not in Ukraine
On April 14th, General Roger Cloutier posted a video on his LinkedIn account stating that the LANDCOM office in Izmir hosted Major-General Dragoş-Dumitru Iacob, the commander of Multinational Corps
An identical video with the same description was posted on the Facebook page of the NATO Allied Land Command.
Disinformation about the alleged capture of General Cloutier has been disseminated in the past as well. For more on the topic, see our article:
- Was the Commander of NATO Allied Land Command Captured by the Russian Military?
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