On February 7 the official Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in the UK tweeted the following: since 2014, 1.7 million Ukrainians (3.8% of total population) sought refuge in Russia. Ukrainians don’t see Russia as an aggressor.
Meanwhile the Russian Federal Statistics Service presents a somewhat different picture regarding Ukrainian refugees and the 1.7 million mentioned in the embassy’s tweet reflects the total number of Ukraine’s internally displaced persons registered in Ukraine.
While the Russian Embassy in the UK claims that 1.7 million Ukrainians sought refuge in Russia, the country’s official Federal Statistics Service reports that between 2014 and 2017 693,000 Ukrainians received refugee status in Russia.
StopFake has debunked similar fakes about inflated numbers of Ukrainians seeking refuge in Russia.
It is worth noting that the figure of 1.7 million which the Russian Embassy tweeted about is actually the total number of internally displaced persons registered in Ukraine, this is the officially tracked number of people uprooted from their homes by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its incursion into eastern Ukraine.
The Russian embassy’s claim that Ukrainians don’t see Russia as an aggressor is also a fake. According to a recent poll conducted by the reputable Razumkov Center, 72% of Ukrainians feel that Russia is an aggressor country and directly involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
