An Israeli The TV news channel aired “live footage” of the Russians invasion of Ukraine featuring a crashed TIE fighter from star Wars.
The video even shows attackers standing next to the Imperial plane on a snowy road.
An investigation into Channel 13 has been launched and the editor has been suspended after the video was broadcast during a montage of destruction in Ukraine.
Israeli TV news channel broadcasts live footage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine involving a Star Wars TIE fighter
The video was originally an advertisement produced by Disney and Lucasfilm in 2014 to promote a new Star Wars channel in Sky Deutschland.
It shows the attackers inspecting the crashed fighter on a German highway as cars pass by.
The original caption reads: “Warning: unsecured A3 crash. Please turn right and don’t overtake! ‘
The video is believed to have circulated in the Telegram messaging app after the Russian invasion, misleading people into believing it showed footage of the war.
Ukraine has warned of misinformation being shared online, saying Russia is preparing an online campaign to suggest that senior military and political figures have surrendered.
The video even shows attackers standing next to the Imperial plane on a snowy road
An investigation into Channel 13 has been launched and the editor has been suspended after the video was broadcast during a montage of destruction in Ukraine.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov said the campaign would include fake documents and fake footage to shift the narrative around Russia’s failed attempts to overthrow Ukraine’s top powers.
“In order to ‘confirm’ this false information, seemingly signed ‘documents’ will be distributed, as well as false, edited videos,” Reznikov said in an online statement before posting a similar message on Twitter.
Reznikov assured that the Ukrainian leadership remains in Kyiv despite pressure from Russia, saying: “There is no capitulation! Only victory! ‘
YouTube and Facebook have banned Russian state media RT and Sputnik channels across Europe after Facebook and Twitter announced over the weekend that they had blocked a set of pro-Russian fake accounts and hacked accounts sharing anti-Ukrainian social media messages.
The EU has also banned RT and Sputnik’s channels and imposed targeted sanctions on key figures believed to be involved in Russia’s propaganda machine, including RT and Russia Today editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.
The BBC has said it will continue its efforts to ensure that people in Russia have access to its news following reports that viewers do not have access to the Russian-language website service.
Russia’s state communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, meanwhile, has targeted social media giant Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and Twitter for complicity in spreading fake posts about what it described as Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine.
Russia has also announced it will restrict access to the BBC’s website.
Access to the BBC’s websites, the independent news site Medusa, the German television company Deutsche Welle and the Russian-language website of US-funded Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Svoboda, were “restricted” by Roskomnadzor at the request of prosecutors.
The agency said that in each case, the requests of prosecutors were submitted on February 24, the day on which Russian President Vladimir Putin began his attack on Ukraine.
German public television Deutsche Welle has announced that the BBC’s website does not operate in Russia.
However, BBC Russia said that the domain https://bbc.com has not been added to the register of banned sites in the country.
The BBC has said it will continue its efforts to ensure that people in Russia have access to its news following reports that its Russian service website has been blocked in the country.
Vladimir Putin is stepping up his propaganda campaign and is preparing to say Ukraine has surrendered, officials say
A BBC spokesman said: “Access to accurate, independent information is a fundamental human right that should not be denied to people in Russia, millions of whom rely on BBC News every week.
“We will continue our efforts to make BBC News available in Russia and the rest of the world.”
Russia is also stepping up its propaganda machine at home, even targeting children using a child star.
IN video received by The Daily Telegraph from the Ministry of Education, 12-year-old singing miracle Sofia Khomenko tells children’s viewers “we will have a lesson in world peace”.
She is joined by two male presenters who explain the truth behind the events in Ukraine, at least from the point of view of the Ministry of Education.
Denis Polunchukov, the ministry’s chief executive, explained that many of the images circulating on the Ukrainian war were in fact from various conflicts.
12-year-old singing miracle Sofia Khomenko (pictured left) sits next to Education Ministry presenter Denis Polunchukov (pictured right) in a Kremlin propaganda video
The video was titled “A Lesson for World Peace” and taught children how Putin’s “special operation” in Ukraine protects Russians from Nazis.
Some images are even from computer games, he added, warning of the dangers of believing photos shared on social media.
The Kremlin has used it in the past footage from video games to claim that the United States supports ISIS in the Middle East, shortly before Russian troops entered the Syrian Civil War in 2017.
Ms. Khomenko asked puzzled questions to the two presenters, who reassured her with recent history lessons on how the Nazis attacked Russian-speakers and police during riots in Ukraine – a reference to the 2014 Maidan revolution.
The attacks forced Russia to intervene in 2014, officials said, citing the 2022 invasion, saying women and children in eastern Ukraine needed protection.
As examples of disinformation on social media, Polunchukov cited allegations of rockets hitting a kindergarten, smashing a column of tanks or launching planes from the sky.
The video portrays NATO as the aggressor and the United States as the instigator of the war, according to the Telegraph.
He finished by turning to the camera and telling the children directly:
– You are the heirs of our great country.