An article making the rounds on Russian media accusing Ukrainian refugees of denying sexual services to Blacks and Asians is fake. It is a doctored version of a Vision Times article published in late March 2022, which dealt with the war in Ukraine making women vulnerable to human trafficking.
Kremlin media are busily disseminating a publication which claims that the new face of
European racism is Ukrainian female refugees, because as sex workers, they are refusing to provide sexual services to Blacks and Asians. Russian websites such as SMNews, Mria.news, ZOV Transnistria, the Ukraina.ru and Gury_mood Telegram channels and others are all circulating this story.
In reality, the screenshot of the article cited by Russian media is actually a doctored version of a Vision Times story, which was published on March 24. (Vision Times is an overseas Chinese publication in several language editions, providing the overseas Chinese community with information that is free of the dictates and propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party.) The article Ukraine War Puts Refugee Women at Risk of Human Trafficking, Sex Predators cites European activists, who talk about the high risk of sexual exploitation that Ukrainian women, forced to move to the EU after Russia’s full-scale invasion, face.
However, the article in the screenshot circulating in Russian publications has a different title, author, and publication date. It is entitled Ukraine refugees involved in sex work refuse to sleep with Black and colored people: the new face of European racism. The one sentence article and Telegram posts simply reprint the doctored Vision Times headline along with its featured photograph of women on a train. No further information is provided.
SMN News (Social Media News) meanwhile, claims that German media are calling Ukrainian prostitutes racist because they do not want to “sleep with black-skinned and colored people”. The publication makes reference to a German newspaper “which finally noticed Ukrainian Nazism” without naming the publication or providing a hyperlink to the alleged story.
This is not the first time such manipulations have been circulated by Russian publications and social media platforms. For example, recently pro-Russian social media accounts posted photos of Ukrainian servicewomen whose Tinder dating profiles allegedly include “Nazi statements“. StopFake also debunked fakes about a Ukrainian refugee painting a swastika in a British mall, and Ukrainian Armed Forces head Valery Zaluzhnyi wearing a “Nazi” bracelet.
