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The Kyiv regime is literally selling the land of the country, says pro-Russian blogger Dan Diaconu, taking over fake news that circulated last year in the ex-Soviet space.
Poland, Russian propaganda’s favorite target
NEWS: "This is something else! Do you know what is happening here (in Kharkiv region)? Polish trucks are loading chernozem and taking it to Poland. Do you realize that Zelensky the scumbag has been selling even bare land? It's absolutely incredible." - the commentary of a 26-second video, made up of two footages: the first shows a machine loading soil into a truck on what appears to be a construction site, the second shows images filmed from the cab of a truck driving on an asphalt road.
NARRATIVE: Ukraine is literally selling its land to the West, which is only interested in exploiting Ukrainian resources.
CONTEXT: About a year ago, in April 2023, a video circulated on social media, and particularly on Telegram, suggesting that soil rich in chernozem soil was being loaded onto Polish trucks in the Ukrainian Kherson region and transported to southern Poland in the proximity of the borders with the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The narrative is part of the arsenal of fake news and disinformation promoted since the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine , which have made Poland one of Moscow's favorite propaganda targets, alongside the US and the European Union, because it is the most vocal of all Ukraine's neighbors in denouncing the Russian aggression and supporting Kyiv's defensive efforts. Most often, disinformation originating from Moscow talks about the help that Washington is providing to Warsaw for Poland to annex its former territories , now belonging to Ukraine, a narrative that gets in line with the thesis regarding the artificial nature of the Ukrainian state, promoted to justify Russia's territorial claims to its neighbor.
Dan Diaconu, who calls himself an economic analyst, is a pro-Russian blogger, whose website is a conglomeration of conspiracy theories, fake news and disinformation related to most current topics (pandemic, anti-covid vaccine, climate change, the Israel – Hams conflict etc.), as well as articles in which Russia is considered a model state and its aggression against Ukraine appreciated. His "economic" articles are in fact eulogies to countries outside the "globalist" circle, presented as models of success, with the idea of showing that prosperity can also be achieved if a country chooses its own economic model, based on a policy totally independent of that of various international bodies, especially those in which the USA and Western European states have an important say. In addition, Diaconu keeps a kind of frontline diary on Telegram, in which he informs his followers about the victories of the Russian army, excessively praising its successes on the battlefield. Moreover, when he announces the seizing and total destruction of a new Ukrainian town, he speaks of its "liberation". A few days ago, he posted the film from a year ago, explaining it to the Romanian public. By the time of publication of this material, it had been followed and liked by more than 9,300 people out of the 12,700 followers of the channel.
PURPOSE: To amplify anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian feelings, to promote anti-Western discourse, to provoke and amplify social tensions.
Transporting soil thousands of kilometers is not cost-effective
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: Diaconu's description of the footage shows that he distributed it without paying too much attention, probably due to the urge of posting the materials "received by the newsroom" as quickly as possible. This fact is quite clear from his statement that the action presented takes place in Kharkiv, when in fact the video itself makes it extremely clear that it is "Obwód chersoński", meaning "Kherson region". Therefore, it is hard, if not impossible, to believe that, in a region half occupied by the Russian army and constantly subjected to bombings and air attacks by the Moscow forces, some Polish truck drivers are waiting their turn to load earth, which they then transport 1,000 kilometers away, crossing a country at war.
In fact, the narrative claiming that the chernozem-rich and highly fertile soil of Ukraine is literally being transported to Western Europe has its origins in the theory that the West has already begun to extract from Ukraine, on account of the economic and military aid provided, timber, soil rich in chernozem or rare minerals, disguised as Ukrainian exports of agricultural products. The theory is absurd, especially if we take into account the recent scandals related to Ukrainian exports of grain, chicken meat or bee honey. In Poland in particular, farmers' protests have turned extremely violent, and tons of Ukrainian grain destined for export to the European Union have been thrown from trucks and train cars by angry farmers. In support of the statement, Diaconu does not provide the slightest argument and we can speculate that, almost certainly, a clandestine transport of fertile soil would have been exposed by the angry protesters at the Polish border, which was blocked for several days. In addition, although it is technically possible to replace the soil in an entire field, it is not economically feasible. Costs of transportation, fixing the soil in the ground, moving the pre-existing soil, etc. would generate infinitely higher costs than those of fertilizers, compost for agriculture or other organic methods of increasing the quality of the soil. At the same time, the large-scale movement of soils can also have extremely harmful consequences. When the soil is moved, its structure is broken and the protective vegetation disappears, making it extremely sensitive to the erosive forces of wind and water.
Moreover, it can be easily seen that the two trucks presented in the film are different. The one presented as being in Poland is a Scania truck, as evidenced by the logo on the steering wheel, and if we look at the way the tipper of the one presented as being in Ukraine looks, we notice that it does not resemble the types of tipper manufactured by the Swedish manufacturer. In reality, most likely, the images are filmed during the first phase of a construction site where a road or a larger building is to be built. More specifically, the clip shows the work of removing the upper layer of earth, not the soil, in order to start the construction.
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