A viral video claiming to show Ukrainian border guards shooting a group of migrants at a border with Belarus is fake, Ukraine’s Border Guard said in a statement on Wednesday, denying such an incident ever happened.
“This information is untrue,” the border guard service said in a statement, denouncing the video that recently surfaced on social media as “a fake.” No groups of illegal migrants were discovered on Ukraine’s border with Belarus, the statement added as it called on Ukrainians not to disseminate “false information” and trust “only verified and official sources.”
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<img src="https://cdni.rt.com/files/2021.11/thumbnail/61a0b50a20302722e9566784.png" alt="Credit: Ukraine’s National Police" />
<figcaption><a href="/russia/541398-ukraine-preventing-refugees-crossing-border/">WATCH: Ukraine practices preventing refugees crossing border</a></figcaption>
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The video in question, taken on an infrared camera, was allegedly recorded on November 29, according to the border guards. The footage shows a group of people moving in two columns in complete darkness. It is unclear through which territory they are moving but some sources then promptly claimed that it was the exclusion zone surrounding Ukraine’s infamous Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which is on the nation’s northern border with Belarus.
At some point, the people are seen rushing back while some of them fall to the ground. Later, the video shows another group of people closing in on those lying on the ground, with at least one of them shooting what appears to be an assault rifle.
The border guard did not comment on the contents of the video but said that it is not the first time such “fake messages” are disseminated. Previous fake reports supposedly suggested that a group of migrants were detained in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Kiev refuted these reports as well.
The statement comes amid an ongoing migrant crisis on the Belarusian border with Poland that saw weeks of attempts by thousands of migrants from troubled countries like Iraq and Syria to get into the EU. Brussels blamed Belarus for putting on flights from these states as part of a “hybrid war” against the EU – something that Minsk repeatedly denied, claiming it simply can’t afford better border protection due to heavy sanctions imposed by the bloc.
https://ift.tt/2ZJQU3j 02, 2021 at 12:15AM
from RT – Daily news