On May 23, Russia launched 15 missiles at Kharkiv Oblast, destroying a Kharkiv printing house, Factor-Druk, in which manufacturing facilities for Vivat, one of the major Ukrainian book publishers, were located. Afterward, information about the printing house having a drone construction site spread online. Our fact-checkers have figured out if it’s true.
What happened?
Users of our Perevirka bot asked us to check if it was true that, when Russian missiles hit the Faktor-Druk printing house, there was a drone construction there. Post with this information was published by Telegram channels “Ukropskyi fresh” (archive) and “СVАРКА И ПОГРУZКА” (archive).
Analysis
Source
“Ukropskyi fresh” that spread the information is 298th in a list of tools for spreading disinformation collected by the Center of Countering Disinformation.
“СVАРКА И ПОГРУZКА” telegram channel posts in Russian and positions itself as a source of news from so-called “special military operation,” which is how the Russian government have been calling Russian-Ukrainian war since the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.
Official comments
Factor-Druk’s printing house posted (archive) on their Facebook page that a Russian missile strike killed seven employees of the company. Another 22 people were injured.
The company’s management says that the missile hit a large manufacturing facility inside the printing house, destroying up to 1,000 square meters [of the building] out of 4,000, burning 50,000 books, and damaging equipment.
We also wrote to Factor-Druk and asked to comment on alleged drone construction being organized in their printing house. They responded that this information is fake and said that there weren’t and aren’t any military objects on the territory of the printing house.
Gwara Media journalists have been to Faktor-Druk in the aftermath of the Russian missile attack on the printing house. Read our report here.
The same Telegram channel that spread the “news,” “Ukropskyi Fresh,” wrote (archive) at 4:14 p.m. on May 23 that the Russian military destroyed a printing press in Kharkiv and said that, now, the number of “propagandists tools of Kyiv’s regime” will be reduced. Propagandists themselves “confirmed that Russia hit Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Back then, they weren’t saying anything about drone construction.
So, we have another low-quality fake of Russian propaganda aimed to excuse an attack that killed and injured dozens of civilians.
Conclusion: Fake
Author: Vasylyna Haviak
Read more
- Debunking Russian fakes. No, Russia didn’t kill over 60 French mercenaries in missile strike on Kharkiv
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