Fake Russian social media posts use 2018 photo of Turkish tank destroyed in Syria.
At the end of February, Kremlin media and Russian social media users began to disseminate stories claiming that fighters from the private military company Wagner managed to destroy a German Leopard tank in eastern Ukraine. An accompanying photograph purportedly is the proof of this alleged military success.
“Today, February 26, 2023, near the village of yagodnoye, “Wagner” PMC fighters destroyed the first “LEOPARD” tank, the fighters were very surprised to see german equipment rolling out onto our positions. Wagner PMC soldiers attacked the german tank with an ATGM, the impact tore off the turret, the polish-german mercenary crew was destroyed.”
(The posts do not write German and Polish with capital letters, the Ukrainian town referred to in the fake claim is also written with a small letter, copying Ukrainians’ frequent practice of not capitalizing all things Russian in social media posts since Russia invaded Ukraine.)
StopFake factcheckers decided to check the authenticity of the photo used by Russian propagandists. It turns out the photo was made long before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A reverse search of the photo on TinEye showed that this photo was actively circulated back in 2018. Then, as reported in various media (1,2), this tank, which belonged to the Turkish army, was destroyed in Syria.
In addition, after the news about the “first destroyed Leopard tank” was massively circulated in the Kremlin media and on social media, Wagner PMC owner Yevgeny Prigozhin denied this information. His audio response was published on the Prigozhin Press Service Telegram channel.
“We didn’t destroy the Leopards. So far, there have been no fights with the Leopards …”, Prigozhin said.Earlier, StopFake debunked a fake story claiming Ukrainian tank drivers being trained in Germany were allegedly asked “not to draw a swastikas and refrain from doing the Sieg Heil salute“.
