Antifake / Factcheck

12 March

Fact check: ONT falsely reported that Polish farmers have crashed cars from batch of military vehicles for Ukraine

ONT employees referred to the leading propagandist of Russian TV, Olga Skabeeva as a source of information.

Fake appearance date: 04.03.2024
Polish farmers crashed cars that were supposed to be sent to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The ON state-run media outlet website published the alleged news. The Weekly Top Fake team uncovered what in fact happened to the cars.

On March 4, the Belarusian state-run TV channel ONT website published a report: “Near the state border with Ukraine, Polish farmers crashed cars intended for the Ukrainian Armed Forces”.

“On the border of Poland and Ukraine, several vehicles (jeeps, pickups), intended for transfer to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, were smashed or damaged. And Polish farmers did it,” ONT said.

ONT employees referred to the leading propagandist of Russian TV, Olga Skabeeva as a source of information. She published a video on her Telegram with the following caption: “The Poles seemed to start to realize what the demilitarization of Ukraine is”.

The first video was published online by Ukrainian public figure Konstantin Andryuk. He falsely claimed that Polish farmers damaged the machines. However, the Ukrainian Embassy in Poland debunked this information.

“These vehicles were damaged in the country from which they were delivered to the territory of the Republic of Poland. Currently, the cars are already in the territory of Ukraine. Polish farmers have nothing to do with the story covered by the media,” the Ukrainian diplomatic department said

Ukrainian volunteers from the UK also reported that the cars were damaged not by Polish farmers, but by British vandals.

As proof, they published a video of wrecked cars, filmed, according to them, in a parking lot in the UK on February 20.

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