On August 13, Russkaya Vesna manipulated a photo of American Abrams tanks as “proof” for its article, “Militia Men State that American Abrams Tanks Detected on the Front Line in Luhansk People’s Republic (VIDEO).”
Though the site wrote that “the information about American tanks in the Ukrainian Army should be verified additionally,” the image of the tanks is falsely watermarked with “RusVesna.su,” as though it had actually been taken by a Russkaya Vesna journalist.
The report and photo were then reposted by Zvezda and the Russian News Agency.
However, the image has nothing to do with the conflict in Donbas. It can be found on many sites, including those for the Encyclopedia of safety, Army technology, discovermilitary.com, Тільки правда, tanky.dovidnyk.info,armor.kiev.ua, worldweapon.ru, and others.
It should be noted that other Russian media agencies manipulate stock or otherwise available images of American tanks for similarly false reports about American tanks in Donbas. However, thus far, they have not taken the imaginative step of placing a bogus digital watermark on them. Such images of Abrams M1 tanks can be found on geo-politica.info, molotpravda.su, mosmonitor.ru, and politrussia.com.
