An audio recording is being circulated online as “evidence” of Ukrainian “sabotage”, however the recording first surfaced online at least in 2018 when it was widely circulated in Kazakhstan.
The Kremlin media (0:58) as well as Russian social media users and chat groups are disseminating an audio claiming it is of Ukrainians calling Russian schoolchildren, introducing themselves as the gas service and asking them to open gas valves. The goal, according to the fake story, is “to organize explosions in high-rise buildings”. A certain Ukrainian Center for Information and Psychological Operations is said to be the organization behind this campaign.
Such messages are accompanied by an audio recording of the call, during which a woman claiming to be conducting remote checks of the gas service, asks a little girl to fully turn on the gas burners and go rest or play in another room for two hours.
This recording was first disseminated on social media in Kazakhstan, and has nothing to do with Ukraine. Back in 2018, this recording was the topic of a news story on a Kazakh television channel, when it was noted that the mysterious recording was made somewhere in Kazakhstan, and was making the rounds online.
The presenters and participants of the newscast talk about the need for such calls to be investigated, however, the story does not say if any police action took place. The story does not mention any explosions or other unfortunate incidents that may have resulted from these calls.
After it became clear that Russian media had used an old fake to create a new fake about “Ukrainian saboteurs,” Russian media rushed to refute their own fake. Even the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations officially debunked these calls and pointed out that they had already been used in 2020 to frighten Russians. Nevertheless, the fake claim accusing Ukrainians continues to make the rounds on social media and chat groups.
StopFake has debunked similar gas related stories put out by the Russian propaganda machine, such as the claim from September of last year, about Ukraine allegedly being behind the explosion on the Nordstream pipeline.
