Her tale went like this: The 16-year-old, a Russian speaker, was beaten by a band of Ukrainians at a train station in Euskirchen, a German town nestled in a valley near Cologne. The boy, Daniel, slipped into a coma and died, while the assailants returned to their refugee housing.
Her claims, according to German authorities, are false. In the 90-second video, the woman doesn’t identify herself, disclose her location or explain the basis for her account. Police said there was no evidence of such an attack, describing the video as “intended to stir up hatred.” State prosecutors are investigating.
That didn’t stop the woman’s outcry from gaining viral attention this week, as her video became the latest salvo in a battle over truth and online persuasion playing out in parallel with Russia’s war in Ukraine.
A subsequent apology from the woman didn’t stop her baseless assertions from spreading online. Instead, her discredited claims continued to underpin efforts by Kremlin-aligned voices to justify Russia’s assault on Ukraine and stoke divisions within Germany’s Russian-speaking minority, which includes nearly 1.2 million people who speak predominantly Russian at home, according to federal estimates.
A German counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing law enforcement matter, said the “video itself and the way it has been disseminated” bear the hallmarks of disinformation spread “either by Russian state actors or by nonstate actors...
The President of the Association of Yorubas in Diaspora, South Africa, Dr Olusola Agbeniyi, has asked the senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, to desist from making what he described ...