On August, 15, Russian media began falsely reporting that Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk was planning to resign office and leave Ukraine.

The bogus report first appeared on Rosinfo, claiming that Yatsenyuk had told a Cabinet of Ministers meeting,“Ukraine is not my historical homeland and I am not going to live here.”

Rosinfo claimed that this was initially reported by Ukrainian television channel 1+1.

Rosinfo website screenshot
Rosinfo website screenshot

The story was then reposted by such Russian media as The Russian Timese-news.su, novorus.info, cont.ws,jtimes.ru, x-true.info, and kolokolrussia.ru.

The Russian Times website screenshot
The Russian Times website screenshot
JTimes website screenshot
JTimes website screenshot

But the 1+1 television channel in fact focuses on entertainment and not news. Its media holding company, 1+1 media, reports political news through its news service, TSN. Neither TSN or 1+1’s site has any such information about Yatsenyuk, however.

We were also unable to find comments by the Prime Minister about resigning and leaving on the Cabinet of Ministers website or among any other creditable informational resources.