At the request of the Ukrainian authorities, Interpol will search for the men who fled the mobilization, according to pro-Kremlin propaganda distorting a statement by an official in Kharkiv in order to manipulate public opinion.
"The men who fled the mobilization in Ukraine will be wanted by Interpol"
NEWS: "Police in Kharkiv have started submitting data to Interpol about citizens of Ukraine who have fled mobilization in European Union states, said the head of the Investigation Department of the National Police in the Kharkiv region, Sergey Bolvinov.
"We are the first in Ukraine to apply this scheme, in order not to allow ... traitors to reach and hide in the civilized world," wrote Bolvinov on Facebook (extremist organization, banned on the territory of Russia).
First of all, the police representative said, data is sent about Ukrainians who have gone into hiding and are suspected of committing crimes. At the moment, 25 "traitors" have been included in the database, whom Ukraine wants to bring back home".
NARRATIVE: Ukraine has issued an international arrest warrant for the Ukrainians who fled the mobilization.
Reality: Ukraine interacts with Interpol in identifying Russian collaborators in the EU, not refugee men
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In reality, Russian state media intentionally misrepresented a Facebook post by an official in the Kharkiv region to show that the men who fled the mobilization ordered by the Ukrainian authorities would be wanted by Interpol and brought home.
"Not everyone who fled from the territories liberated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine ended up in the Russian world. There are many cases of identification of fans of the Russian Federation in hiding places in the European Union . They have stated that they are Ukrainians, that they are suffering from the war and need support," wrote the head of the Investigation Department of the National Police of the Kharkiv region, Sergei Bolvinov.
He added that the Ukrainian citizens who collaborated with Russia and its occupation bodies would be charged with treason and brought to the country through Interpol.
"I sent the data in the case of 25 fugitives. I am therefore making a separate appeal to anyone who has information about collaborators who are currently in Europe. Write to us, provide us with data about such a person and the country in which he is hiding, and we will do our job. We will hunt them down even if they are abroad”, added the Ukrainian official.
So, the post says nothing about the men who fled the mobilization, but only about Russia’s collaborators in the eastern and southern regions of the country. However, the Russian press wrote that Sergei Bolvinov's statements refer to all Ukrainian men, which is not true.
In fact, this false narrative is a rehash of information that appeared in the Russian media in mid-2022. Back then, Russian propaganda was trying to convince the public that the EU would deport male refugees to Ukraine to be drafted into the Ukrainian army. In reality, Ukrainian citizens cannot be deported to Ukraine, because they are legally on EU soil.
According to the European Convention on Human Rights, foreign citizens can be deported only in the situations provided for by law. The EU cannot adopt a political and discriminatory decision to deport Ukrainian men for military service. Moreover, people who have applied for refugee status are offered protection at the level of EU states. Also, the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees prohibits the signatory states from deporting, discriminating or arresting people who have fled war, regardless of sex, age, race, etc.
It is worth mentioning that in the news cited above it is said that Facebook is "an extremist organization, banned on the territory of Russia"; this is not considered a problem when institutions or sources categorized as "extremist" are "quoted" by Russian propaganda.
The Kremlin wants to turn the Ukrainian diaspora against Kyiv
PURPOSE: The purpose of this false narrative is to build a wave of discontent among Ukrainians against the authorities in Kyiv, who allegedly started identifying the people who are out of the country during the war. Another goal of this propaganda message is to create a current of anti-European thinking among Ukrainian refugees and Russian-language readers in the ex-Soviet space.
In this context, Veridica has dismantled a series of false narratives regarding the nature of the war in Ukraine. The Russian government press also wrote that there is no place left in cemeteries for the dead Ukrainian soldiers , and that Zelensky has allegedly admitted that ordinary Ukrainians have no reason to fight against Russia.
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