The website Golos Pravdy published a news story arguing that the Ukrainian president, not the Kremlin, was responsible for destroying Ukraine, citing an imaginary Ukrainian political scientist as the source.
The Golos Pravdy article was also re-posted by the Kyiv Echo website.
The article entitled “Ukraine’s biggest enemy systematically destroying the country is not in the Kremlin but on Bankova Street [seat of the Ukrainian presidential administration]” contends that Ukraine’s government intends to claw back the revenue it loses by imposing sanctions against Russia by forcing ordinary Ukrainians to pay increased rates for electricity and other household costs. The warnings are presented as the opinions of political analysts, none of whom are named. The source of the story is a blogger named is Valerian Pidmohylny, writing on the Ukrainian magazine site Korrespondent.net.
But our research shows there is no political analyst called Pidmohylny in Ukraine and the name, and the accompanying photograph featured on the Korrespondent site are that of a prominent Ukrainian writer executed during Stalin’s purges in 1937.
