One of Faktyoxla Lab. followers sent a video to the chat section of our Telegram channel and asked us to check whether the video is true. Considering this request of the reader, we have examined that video.
This video shows two Ukrainian soldiers talking loudly to a woman who is said to be Azerbaijani, driving with her child, the soldiers are insulting her and shooting in the air.
About the video: The Russian “Readovka” telegram channel released a video about an incident recorded by a car’s video recording device on March 27. The video shows that on March 24, 2023, Ukrainian soldiers stop a car driven by a woman on a dirt road in the frontline. It is determined from the sounds that there is a child in the car along with the woman. Approaching the car, the serviceman talks rudely to the woman, insults her (stupid pig, ed.), accuses her of violating the traffic rules and, therefore, military laws by passing the moving military convoy, demands her documents in a loud voice. Taking the documents from the woman, the soldier reads the words “Mustafayeva Aida Safarovna.” The woman’s almost crying attempts to calm the soldier irritate him even more. The soldier first hits the car hard with his hand, curses, and shoots in the air, scaring both the woman and the child. The woman says “What are you doing? I have a child with me, who do you think you are?” Ignoring these words, the soldier walks away from the car and shoots again in the air right in front of the car.
This video is shared by many Russian websites and shown as an example of the rudeness and brutality of Ukrainian soldiers.
Telegram channels close to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also spread the video. However, after some time, the video and information were deleted from the channel.
In most of the posts we came across on social media, we could observe that Azerbaijanis openly expressed their anger at the Ukrainian soldier’s rude actions against the Azerbaijani woman and strongly condemned these actions. However, it is worth noting that the pages and profiles on which this video is distributed also contain individuals who carry out targeted propaganda against Ukrainian soldiers.
Research: GeoConfirmed, a group of volunteers specializing in determining the geolocation of the area, determined the coordinates of the area from the footage.
GeoConfirmed has identified many objects in the area.
Thanks to some details and objects in the area, GeoConfirmed established that the video was recorded at coordinates 47.977044, 37.953754 (XXG3+RG6 Makiivka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine).
These areas are under the control of the Russian military, not Ukrainian servicemen.
Later, a Russian telegram channel ZАПИСКИ VЕТЕРАНА which has 300,000 subscribers claimed that the video was fake.
This user proves that the car seen in the video belongs to Russia, not Ukraine. Thus, the "AMAROK" type of "Volkswagen" is put into operation only in Russia with certain modifications (the body is completely changed), and these cars have never been sold (or brought) to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian fact-finding site sensor.net adds these arguments that the video is fake:
- The area defined by geolocation is on the Donetsk-Makeyevka road, which is under the control of Russian troops.
- The name of one of the informants is “Юрий Алексеич Z V”;
- The cross painted by Ukrainian soldiers on their cars is complete, and the one seen in the video is the Wehrmacht cross.
- Since the beginning of the war, it has been forbidden to carry a video-recording device in cars in the entire territory of Ukraine.
- Low-quality editing of the video also attracts attention. At 1-35 minutes, a soldier opens fire near a car. But you can't hear the sound of serial fire coming from the machine gun. Although the car window was open. (documents were received and checked). The sound of closing the window is not heard. When the soldiers return, it is heard that something is being said between them. That is, it is a small detail, but the director of the video did not take it into account.
Ukrainian investigators could not find the person named “Mustafayeva Aida Safarovna” in the internet. Only one person “Mustafayeva Aida” has been found, whose father is not Safar, but Alexey.
Thus,
- The video of an Azerbaijani woman being detained and insulted by Ukrainian soldiers is fake
- The video was recorded in the territory under the control of the Russian military.
- The use of the Azerbaijani first and last names and patronymics of the woman driving the car was intended to create dissatisfaction among the Azerbaijani viewers and to play with their emotions.
