13. Russian boy beaten to death by Ukrainians in Germany. Fake or not?
The claim that a Russian youth was beaten to death by a “mob of Ukrainian refugees” in the German city of Euskirchen was published in a video addressing Russians in Germany
In this video, which was first posted to TikTok before spreading on other social media platforms, a woman speaking Russian details the alleged beating, describing how a 16-year-old was severely beaten into a coma. The women admits that she does not know the boy personally, but that a friend told her about it. In the video, translated by DW’s Russian Service, she claims that “in the city of Euskirchen near Cologne, at the train station, a boy was beaten up. A group of Ukrainians beat him up half to death — so that he was taken to intensive care. He was in a coma. These bastards were simply taken by the police to the home where they lived. So far nothing has been done to them.” She goes on to say: “But today my friend wrote me that this boy, Daniel, died. Guys! He has died. I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine it right now. It had been a long-awaited child in this family.” The last claim throws up the question of how she knew that the boy was a long-awaited child if she herself does not know the family. The video gained further traction on the account of Alina Lipp, a German-Russian influencer who has published pro-Kremlin content on her Telegram account
HOW CAN WE VERIFY THIS?
Though this video was spread widely in March 2022, via TikTok, Twitter, Telegram and other platforms, German police had a prompt reaction, stating that this crime was never reported in this city and never happened. “The Bonn police, who are responsible for capital crimes in the Euskirchen area, have no information about such a violent assault or even about a fatality. The Bonn police’s State Protection Service has taken up the investigation. The experts currently assume that it is a deliberate ‘fake video’ intended to incite hatred,” a police statement read. Simon Rott, a press spokesman for the Bonn police, told DW that there was “no such incident” or any other similar attack in Euskirchen. “We are currently investigating the identity and background of the woman in question,” he said, also confirming that the police together with the public prosecutor’s office are examining whether the case has “any relevance under criminal law.”
Couple of days later, the same woman published a second video where she is apologizing for her claims, saying: “Today I found out that it is a fake.” “I want to apologize to everyone who has seen my video for not turning out to be the truth. I wanted to ask today when the funeral will take place and found out that it had all been lies,” she says in the video. She goes on to recount that the person she mentioned in the first video who told her about the alleged attack “hates Ukrainians and decided to harm them through this story.” She says that she believed the story because Russians in Germany are being harassed because of the war in Ukraine. “I believed with all my heart that I didn’t need facts, pictures or confirmation. I want you not to repeat my mistake. Don’t trust anyone without having seen confirmation. I don’t know myself right now whether to believe videos in TikTok or not — what is fake and what is not — when I myself fell into this trap.”
WHAT ARE OTHER SOURCES SAYING?
Many media outlets analyzed this video. Washington Post in the article analyses this video as a part of the Russian media hybrid war. A subsequent apology from the woman didn’t stop her baseless assertions from spreading online. Instead, her discredited claims continued to underpin efforts by Kremlin-aligned voices to justify Russia’s assault on Ukraine and stoke divisions within Germany’s Russian-speaking minority, which includes nearly 1.2 million people who speak predominantly Russian at home, according to federal estimates.
A German counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing law enforcement matter, said the “video itself and the way it has been disseminated” bear the hallmarks of disinformation spread “either by Russian state actors or by non-state actors acting on behalf of Russia.”
KEYWORD SEARCH
Keyword search a year later, proves that this piece of fake news was debunked easily by various media outlets, such as DW fact check, Reuters Fact Check, Washington Post, and many others.
FAKE OR NOT?
Very fake and with obvious ill intentions to boost hate and spread war propaganda.
