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Disinfo: Panic in Ukraine due to coronavirus, metro banned in Lviv

Summary

In Ukraine, there is panic due to coronavirus. The country’s government imposed quarantine and banned Ukraine’s metros from working, announced President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The metro was closed, including in Lviv (western Ukraine).

Disproof

Indeed, temporary quarantine has been introduced in Ukraine, just like in many other countries, due to the rapid spread of coronavirus worldwide. However, Lviv does not have, and never has had, a metro. Metro systems in Ukraine can be found only in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro.

The "Lviv Metro" is a well-known Internet meme in Ukraine that makes fun of Russian chauvinism and Ukrainophobia. According to a legend, it was built "by Bandera during the Nazi occupation of the city during WWII using Russian slave labour, and its lines are in the shape of a trident."

Russian media periodically publish fake news about the Lviv metro. For example, in the summer of 2018, they reported that "a monster unknown to science was caught in the Lviv metro."

Read a similar case that Stepan Bandera was an agent for Hitler.

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publication/media

antifashist.com (Archived)
  • Reported in: Issue 189
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 17/03/2020
  • Language/target audience: Russian
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Keywords: coronavirus, fake news
see more

Western sanctions are a result of Crimea’s return to Russia

Western sanctions imposed on Russia are a response to Crimea returning to its original body and to Russia’s position on the Ukrainian crisis.

March 17, 2020
Disproof

This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the illegal annexation of Crimea.

Crimea was illegally annexed by Moscow based on an illegitimate referendum. On 27 March 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in which it stated that the referendum in Crimea was not valid and could not serve as a basis for any change in the status of the peninsula. On 17th December 2018, the UN General Assembly confirmed its non-recognition of the illegal annexation of Crimea.

Coronavirus is an American instrument of biological war

Coronavirus is an [instrument] of American biological war that was launched to fight China, but it got out of control.

March 17, 2020
Disproof

Conspiracy theory about the 2019-nCoV coronavirus, there is no evidence that suggests that the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is used as a weapon against other states. 

It comes from a family of viruses that include other viruses such as SARS and MERS. It was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan in central China and has been rapidly spreading with new cases being reported in the Asia-Pacific region as well as Europe, North America and the Middle East, causing 693,224 confirmed cases and 33,106 deaths as of 30 March 2020.

Coronavirus is definitely an act of American warfare

Some studies and points of view suggest that the United States is behind the Covid-19.

For example, in October 2019, the Military World Games took place in Wuhan, and about 200 American soldiers participated in it, a month later, this virus appeared.

The New York Times and other American newspapers stated that the American government closed a chemical research laboratory for biological warfare, without mentioning the reasons, and there might be some leakage.

The international Nature magazine, published in 2015 an important article in which it said that scientists, specifically in the United States, are studying a modification of the coronavirus which will be transmitted to humans without going through the incubation period in bat’s body.

March 17, 2020
Disproof

Conspiracy theory about the 2019-nCoV coronavirus. There is no evidence that suggests that the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is used as a weapon against other states. 

It was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan in central China and has been rapidly spreading with new cases being reported in the Asia-Pacific region as well as Europe, North America and the Middle East, causing 697,244 confirmed cases and 33,257 deaths up until 31 March 2020 in 203 countries, areas or territories.

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Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.