Graffiti in the EU about the Ukrainian elections: how Russian propagandists spread posts on Facebook
28 May 2024 17:37
Posts about graffiti in Europe about the Ukrainian elections are being shared on Facebook. Russian propagandists used a photo of a Ukrainian doctor to create a fake profile of a “journalist”. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to Ukrinform.
on 20 May in Munich, unknown persons painted graffiti on the grave of Stepan Bandera with the inscription “We need elections”. Two days later, the same inscription appeared on a building opposite the Ukrainian House in Warsaw.
The same inscription was also found on the sidewalk near the consular section of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Polish capital. on 24 May, a video was posted online from the centre of Paris, where an unknown person left the inscription “We need elections” on a wall.
All four cases were captured in photos and videos posted on AIinaUA’s Facebook page. The profile contains a photo of a girl wearing an embroidered shirt, and the information states that she is a “journalist”.
This profile was created on 11 April 2024. For a month, the page published reprints of Ukrainian news, often from telegram channels. on 18 May, a propaganda video about the Maidan and the Revolution of Dignity was posted, repeating Russian narratives. This was followed by videos and photos of graffiti saying “We need elections” in Warsaw, Munich and Paris.
The agency notes that this account is fake. AIinaUA’s profile uses a photo from a Lviv embroidery shop that was taken back in 2018.
The photo belongs to a Ukrainian woman named Alina, who works as a paediatric urologist at the Okhmatdyt hospital and has nothing to do with journalism. She told an Ukrinform correspondent that the account that shared the graffiti video did not belong to her. The fake page was created using her old photo from the Russian social network Vkontakte, which she stopped using in 2015.
Myroslava Kerik, head of the board of the Ukrainian House NGO, is convinced that Russian forces are behind the graffiti, seeking to sow discord among Ukrainians. She emphasised that the staff of the Ukrainian House was not involved in these actions and did not support them.
Police in Warsaw said that the investigation is being conducted in accordance with Article 108 of the Polish law on the protection of cultural property. In another police station responsible for the consular section of the Embassy of Ukraine, they are acting under Article 63, §1 of the Polish Code of Administrative Offences. Munich police detained a 38-year-old local resident suspected of vandalising Stepan Bandera’s grave.
As of 28 May, the fake page through which the video was distributed was deactivated. As previously reported, according to the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine’s Chief Intelligence Directorate, Andriy Yusov, it was at the end of May 2024 that the Russians were preparing to escalate their campaign about the “loss” of legitimacy of the Ukrainian government due to the lack of elections.
