Ukrainian journalist Bohdan Butkevych did not urge the killing of 1.5 million civilians in Donbas as Kremlin’s propaganda sources recently presented in their fake news.
The Russian media company LifeNews edited pieces from an old interview by Bohdan Butkevych with Hromadske.tv on April 29 and fabricated an interview in order to defame him as a ‘bloody fascist’. 24SMI published an article with counterfeit news titled “Ukrainian journalist suggested to kill 1.5 million redundant people in Donbas” and referring to another article by Vesti.ru: “Ukrainian journalist: Too many people live in Donbas, some of them just have to be killed.” Kremlin propaganda sources and many Facebook users are enthusiastically spreading the bogus sensational news, while the original Hromadske.tv interview is still easily accessible on YouTube.
It is easy to see how the fake news was fabricated when you know to watch for editing cuts.
In the beginning of his original interview, Butkevych explained the unemployment situation in the Donbas oblast and mentioned that 1.5 million people cannot find work. They feel redundant.
As for “appeals to murder”, the journalist was talking about terrorist leaders: those who abducted journalists, tortured and killed civilians, and photographed the corpses of our soldiers. His words were taken out of the context in which he spoke about the militants, criminals with guns, and bandit formations with whom the Ukrainian government should not negotiate.
So, the first part of the original interview was about the desperation of people in Donbas from the unemployment situation, and the second was about the uncivilized cruelty of terrorists. LifeNews assembled a forged montage taking the reference to 1.5 million in excessive population out of first part and the phrase referring to unacceptable negotiations with terrorists from the second part. Then they fabricated the fake news.
But can you explain this to the victims of Russian propaganda?
Here is the original Hromadske.tv interview from April 29th:
[hr]Oksana Halby. Image by Dimitri Halby
