On July 23, the Russian site Optimist falsely reported that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had told the Israeli television network Arutz 10 that Ukrainian policy should be more aligned toward Russia.
“Enough with hopes for EU help, enough with believing in EU politicians’ honesty,” the President is alleged to have said. “Eighteen months passed and things have not moved an inch forward. People see that things are only getting worse. And if they become worse because of our longing for entering the EU, it means the EU is out of our way. It’s time to turn towards Russia.”
The story was then published by online Russian media outlets, such as World Political Show, Maxpark, and Voenternet.
There is no mention of such comments by Ukraine’s president on Arutz 10’s site. And most revealingly, no major Ukrainian or Russian news agencies picked up on the remarks, which seems improbable if such an important shift in policy had in fact been stated.
This is the third time that StopFake.org has called into question false reports wrongly attributed to Arutz 10. Each of the bogus stories has been related to Poroshenko.
