Disinfo: Four-year-old died as a result of a drone attack by the Ukrainian Army

Summary

The preliminary results of the investigation - according to which the four-year-old died as a result of a drone attack. The drone had dropped an unspecified explosive device in a residential area. The crime is to be classified as an act of terrorism by Ukraine.

Disproof

Deliberate disinformation about the Ukrainian army without factual basis.

Reports by pro-Kremlin media about a boy allegedly killed by a drone attack by the Ukrainian army on April 3, 2021, cannot be considered true. Rather, the cause of death appears to be an accident with explosives/old ammunition and not by a drone attack.

RT German and other pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets spread information that a child allegedly died as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack in the NGCA [Non-Government-controlled-area] of Donbas. These reports refer to the “people’s police” of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”, which made a similar statement on April 3, 2021.

According to the comprehensive debunk of the Ukrainian Fact-Checking Group StopFake, the boy died as a result of an accident while handling explosive elements. This is confirmed by statements of eye-witnesses from the respective village within the debunk of StopFake. For a more comprehensive account of operational details read a similar disinformation case here.

As of 14 April an OSCE Special Monitoring Team visited the site of the incident on 2 April and reported their findings in their daily report, the OSCE SMM does not mention any drone attack and describe just the findings, which refer to an explosion at the spot:

The SMM could not assess the type of ordnance that caused the crater. It assessed all the [...] damage as recent and probably caused by shrapnel.

The accident version appears even more convincing due to the geographical location of the settlement Oleksandrivske. Military expert Oleksandr Kovalenko writes that the drone could not reach Oleksandrivske since the distance from the village to the government-controlled territory is about 30 kilometres.

The Ukrainian Army [Joint Forces Operation’s] press service also confirmed to StopFake that their drones are not able to cover such a distance with ammunition and point to the false nature of this information.

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publication/media

de.rt.com (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 240
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 14/04/2021
  • Article language(s) German
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Ukraine
  • Keywords: Donbas, War in Ukraine, DNR
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