Anti-Ukraine disinformation has been widely circulated via a fake BBC video that suggests Ukraine was behind the devastating missile attack on a Donbas station last week that killed 57 people.
The BBC is trying to have the video removed.
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The video, which opens with a BBC logo and has the broadcaster’s watermark in the top corner, makes a number of baseless claims to imply that Ukraine was behind the attack on Kramatorsk in, such as that the serial numbers of the missiles were identical to that of missiles it claims Ukraine has used elsewhere.
57 people were killed and 109 injured when two ballistic missiles exploded, dropping cluster bombs all over the concorse and baggage hall at Kramatorsk station in the Donestk Oblast of eastern Ukraine on Friday the 8th of April. It was one of the biggest massacres since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
The station was crowded with 4,000 people waiting for evacuation trains when it was hit by what experts say were cluster bombs, which are banned. Ukrainian officials said that no military personnel were present when the missiles hit and that most of those at the station were women and children.
Footage that emerged from the attack showed lifeless bodies lying on the ground and streaks of blood as surviving passengers tried to flee the main platform.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, angrily accused Moscow of “murderous, deliberate slaughter”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Russia “an evil with no limits”. He said the attack was a war crime that would form part of any future tribunal into the invasion. “Like the massacre in Bucha, like many other Russian war crimes, the missile strike on Kramatorsk must be one of the charges at the tribunal, which is bound to happen,” he said.
The casing of one of the rockets found in the aftermath of the attack had the Russian message “za detei” – for the children – written on it, apparently as revenge for Ukrainians killing children, an accusation Russia commonly makes against the country.
Russia has denied responsibility for the attack.
The BBC said: “We are aware of a fake video with BBC News branding suggesting Ukraine was responsible for last week’s missile attack on Kramatorsk train station. The BBC is taking action to have the video removed. We urge people not to share it and to check stories on the BBC News website.”
