Propagandists changed the inscription on the cross in the photo editor. In Ukraine, temporarily unidentified defenders are buried with military honors.
«And how many more are there all over the country?» — the propagandists comment on the image of the alleged burial of an unknown Ukrainian soldier who died during hostilities. Pro-Russian sources draw attention to the homemade wooden cross and the absence of flowers at the funeral — allegedly, this indicates lack of respect for ordinary soldiers who give their lives in battle.
However, this photo is fake. First, any native speaker of Ukrainian immediately notices that the parts of the sentence on the grave plate are grammatically mismatched. Second, although the word «unidentified» is appropriate in this context, in real burials of unknown soldiers it is customary to use the phrase «temporarily unidentified» to emphasize that the identification of the soldier and the search for his relatives are ongoing. This can be seen in the photo of such burials, which have existed in Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Starobilsk since 2014.
And thirdly, with the help of the Forensically tool, we established that the propagandists edited the photo and changed the inscription on the cross in the photo editor. We used the Error Level Analysis function and examined the image resolution under a microscope. In an unedited photo, flat surfaces and uniform textures should have the same color. However, in our image, the areas of the board without text look significantly darker.
Unfortunately, sometimes it is not possible to immediately identify a dead soldier. In such cases, the body is stored in the morgue for a certain time, DNA material is collected from it to continue the identification of the soldier and the search for his relatives, and then buried with military honors. As soon as the deceased can be identified, his relatives have the right to rebury the body. In addition, the humanitarian mission «Black Tulip» ensures that fallen Ukrainian soldiers are given a dignified burial. The search team brings home the bodies of soldiers who cannot be immediately retrieved from the battlefield due to intense combat or landmines. Therefore, the propaganda narrative about inhumane burials of Ukrainian soldiers is not true.
Using image editing techniques, Russian propaganda manages to create more and more convincing fakes. We recently refuted a similar example, using the Forensically tool, in the article Fake: In Africa, a Reward of Several Bags of Gold Announced for «Budanov’s head».
