The claim A report by Rossiya24, one of Russia’s two main state-run television networks, which is watched by tens of millions of viewers inside and outside Russia, allegedly shows Ukrainian soldiers dressing up a mannequin to be used in Ukraine’s “theater of war.” “Here you can see the preparations for the ‘theater’ – literally – of war activities in Ukraine,” says the news reader. “As you can see for yourself, it’s not complicated. Two men in military uniforms wrap this dummy in scotch tape, with the clear intention of portraying it as dead.” The news presenter then claims, vaguely and without documentation, that “dozens of fakes with such mannequins are popping up on the channels of the Ukrainian Telegram”. The news segment, which aired Thursday night or Friday morning, was also published — and later deleted — from the network’s online streaming platform later on Friday, April 8th. But the clip quickly spread through a network of pro-Russian Telegram channels and other social media, supporting the false narrative that the horrific scenes from Ukraine are simply being directed. The facts The Russian government and national media have previously denied allegations that it was behind the mass deaths of civilians in Bucha and other cities in the Kiev region, which were abandoned by Russian forces last week. He claimed that Ukrainian forces and the international media had conspired to “falsify” corpses in the streets of Bucha and that the attack was a “provocation” by the West. Her allegations were refuted in a recent audit by Newsweek. People walk through wreckage and damaged Russian military vehicles on a street on April 06, 2022 in Bucha, Ukraine. The Ukrainian government has accused Russian forces of carrying out a “deliberate massacre” as they captured and eventually retreated from Bhutan, 25 kilometers northwest of Kiev. The Russian media used irrelevant material to mislead the public about the killings of Ukrainian citizens. Chris McGrath / Getty Images The latest video adds to the body of misinformation transmitted by Russia about the tragic events taking place in Ukraine. The footage presented as “evidence” of Ukraine’s conspiracy to “fake” the deaths of its citizens was, in fact, footage from a set of Russian television shows filmed several weeks ago in Russia in Vsevolozhsk, near St. Petersburg. This fact was pointed out by the assistant director of the play, Nadezhda Kolobaeva, on her Facebook page on Friday morning. “Rossiya24 recently aired its ‘debunks’ with Ukrainian fakes. And what do you think? They said, ‘Two Ukrainians in military uniforms wrap this dummy in scotch tape to show it as dead.’ [the footage] was filmed by us on March 20 in Vsevolozhsk, to show someone falling out of a window, for our TV show. “The men are stunt coordinators, preparing little Albert for the stage,” Kolobaeva wrote. A picture of the location of the scene was also shared, where the “body” had to hit the ground, with blood spraying all over the ground, along with other photos and videos from the set. The video used by Rossiya24 is overlaid with a watermark referring to the U_G_M Telegram channel. This pro-Russian channel actually published the clip on April 6, claiming that it depicts the AFU “preparing another video of acrobatics to then blame it on Putin.” A voice behind the camera, speaking in Russian, comments: “Poor man, he will fall out of the window.” While Rossiya24 has not yet faced charges of misleading its audience, Roman Super, a Russian journalist who spotted the misleading report, said he had been told by network staff that “the news team received an information [to the footage]but neither the news editor nor the producer knew he was not from Ukraine. “ Newsweek contacted Rossiya24 for comment. The decision False. The video, which the Russian state television network claimed to show a covert attempt to organize a photo shoot with a dummy “playing” a dead body, aimed at framing Russian troops for the killing of civilians, is in fact taken from a movie set. The TV show’s assistant director said the dummy was used for a scene depicting someone falling out of a window and shared additional footage and images from the film set. CHECK DATA FROM NEWSWEEK
