The alleged Switchblade 300 sale ads use photos of two different Switchblade drones, both of which were damaged and shot down in Syria in the past decade. These photographs first appeared on the web six and seven years ago, respectively.
There is no reliable evidence that Ukraine is selling Western weapons on the black market. Russian propagandists, however, continue to churn out fakes on this theme. One of the newest fakes devoted to this topic claims that Switchblade-300 drones provided by the United States to Ukraine as military assistance, are now “openly sold on the Ukrainian darknet.” This fake first appeared on Russian state television Channel One. After this premiere, the fake was disseminated on dozens of pro-Kremlin sites, such as Lenta.ru, the Defense Ministry’s Zvezda, Rambler, Federal News Agency, OSN, NewsFront, Economika Segodnya, Silovoy Blok News Agency, FBM, Narodnoye Novosti and others.
This fake was created according to a well-established scheme. First, fake pages are created online filled with fake information. This is followed by fake news items on pro-Kremlin sites, using the fake pages as “proof” of the fake story being peddled. The fake story becomes a pretext for scaring Europeans with predictions of a huge influx weapons influx into European cities, and for accusing Ukraine of selling the weapons and finally, for demanding that the weapons stop being supplied to Ukraine.
The reader is told that the ever-vigilant Russian propagandists just happened to discover an announcement on the darknet (closed segment of the internet) about the “sale” of American weapons by Ukrainians. The announcement is by an unknown seller from Kyiv, he is ready to sell American Switchblade-300 drones for a mere $4,000.
We learn from the “Kyiv seller of American weapons” that he can also “anonymously deliver weapons to any city in Europe”. Just these two moments illustrate well-worn Kremlin propaganda cliches: Ukraine steals and sells American weapons which are then transported to Europe without any controls.
We noticed that drone number 1571 offered for sale in the ad is displayed lying on a map on which all the signs are in Arabic. Why would a “weapons seller from Kyiv” photographs his American drone lying on an Arabic map?
Using a photo search program StopFake found a photo of the same Switchblade 300 drone with the number 1571 on a Reddit forum. This drone was being discussed by Twitter users because it was shot down seven years ago in Syria.
It appears that the “Kyiv seller of American weapons” is trying to sell a drone (photo 3)that was shot down seven years ago (photo 2) in Syria . The creators of this fake were too lazy to even bother finding a new photo (photo 1) of a Switchblade-300 drone. New drones are not sold with traces of damage. The drone from the darknet ad (photo 2) has a hole in the body above the numbers 1571.
There is another drone image in this “darknet ad” with 140 as the first digits of its serial number.
StopFake found this photo in 2016 Twitter posts about the war in Syria.
It turns out that this drone (photo 1) offered for sale by Russian propagandists, was shot down in 2016 in Syria (photo 2, 3). Not only do the photographs match, but the number of the drone 1405 does as well.
Both drone images were created using photoshop and old pictures of the drones found by googling Switchblade-300.
