On July 15, 2023, the Facebook account “Светлана Городинская” published a video in which three men dressed in military uniforms address the President of Ukraine in Russian. At the top of the video, we see the inscription: “Finally, ВСУ [Armed Forces of Ukraine] understood what is what!” The people seen in the vide say that the president gave them old weapons and equipment which do not work. One person says that “people are dying there, the real enemy is in Kyiv, so it’s time to go to Kyiv.”
In the fragment disseminated by the Facebook user, it is not clear which president is being addressed; however, the attached inscription and the context that there is currently a war in Ukraine, create the impression that the soldiers are addressing Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The video is misleading and is being circulated without full context. The video has been found on the Internet since 2015, and the address is directed at the then-president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.
The full version of the circulated video was published on February 28, 2015, on the YouTube channel of Андрей Грачёв. Andrey Grachev is, in fact, one of the people seen in the video. Other videos with his own participation can also be found on his YouTube channel.
The full video is 12:37 minutes long, and from 5:05 minutes, soldiers can be heard addressing the then-president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.
The soldiers appeal to the president to visit them for one day and see what is happening, what conditions they are in. They say that Poroshenko failed to ensure order in the country, but this was his main slogan during the elections. “People die here so that you can live in chocolate” – is heard in the video.
A fragment of the video, which was disseminated on Facebook, starts at 10:49.
The author uploaded some more videos from the front. From the description, we learn that the soldiers in the АТО zone (the term used in 2015 to refer to the Luhansk and Donetsk territories controlled by Russian separatists) are stationed near the Donetsk airport and are talking about the situation there. The author of the video, Andrey Grachev, also published an appeal to Poroshenko on March 6.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 20, 2014 and annexed Crimea on March 18. Battles for control of the strategic object – “Donetsk International Airport” took place in 2014-2015. Finally, the facility was controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
About the Source
The Facebook account Светлана Городинская often publishes posts with anti-Western, pro-Russian, and anti-Ukrainian content. The user has disseminated disinformation in the past as well.
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