RIA Novosti news agency reported on March 24 that Moscow was angered by another trick of nationalists in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia. Allegedly during the document check on the train Moscow-Chisinau men wearing UIA uniform forced the passengers holding Russian passports to hand in the money and gold jewellery. This was stated in the Russian Foreign Ministry comments, which RIA Novosti referred to.
“It seems that anarchy as it was in the beginning of XX century is being reborn in Ukraine again. To the dismay of passengers from train number 65 Moscow-Chisinau, which made a stop at the train station in the city Vinnytsia on March 21st, people in the uniform of Ukrainian Insurgent Army entered the carriages and started ” documents check”. The passengers, who presented Russian passport, were forced to hand over their money and gold jewellery. The robbery was accompanied by “political propaganda”. At a loss all the attempt of the robbed people to hand in an appeal to local police, failed. Police refused to accept their statements. This is the “state of law”, which is being formed in Ukraine”, – stressed the Foreign Ministry.
In reality, no people in the UIA uniform were present in the train Moscow-Chisinau. Instead, there were Ukrainian policemen on the train.
According to BBC Ukraine, the press service of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine explained that there were policemen travelling on the train from Vinnytsia to Zhmerynka, which belongs to the South-Western Railway. They had to take a statement about a robbery of one of the passengers.
21st of March at 7.35 the train number 65 was approached by police patrol according to a regular procedure. Their aim was to find out if there had been any incidents on the train. Conductor of one of the carriages told them that one of the passengers reported her handbag with personal belongings being stolen.
The police was called to the train, but as the train stops in Vinnytsia only for a few minutes, they didn’t have time to take the statement about the robbery. Therefore, the Criminal Investigation Department detective – a young woman and the sergeant got onto the train to accompany the passenger to Zhmerynka.
They took the report about the theft from the victim. There were no other reports made to the police, said the press service.
Director of information policy department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Yevhen Perebiynos denied the information about people in the UIA uniform being on the train.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation has spread some horror stories about Ukraine. I personally contacted the press service of the railway, where I was informed that a Russian citizen who was travelling on the train, was robbed of 140 dollars and 10 thousand rubles. She didn’t know who did it. At a train stop police investigators went on the train and took testimony from the victim, accompanying her to the next station Zhmerynka. During the journey no one took anything away from anybody”, – he said.
Speaker of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry advised his Russian colleagues “not to misinform the public and carefully check the information” if it seems to them that Ukrainian police wears UIA uniform”
As previously was reported by Stopfake.org, Vinnytsia has been the target of fakes by Russian television. In particular, Russian TV reported that there were gallows put up in Vinnitsa, with the purpose to intimidate local authorities.
Materials: ВВС Ukraine, UNN.
