Ukraine will be killing a number of people included on the website Mytrovorets, which allegedly shows the next targets of Kyiv, says the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova. In fact, the said website is a private project meant to draw attention towards people who are, one way or another, supporting Russia’s interests, irrespective of their country of origin.
Propaganda: Ukraine will be orchestrating a number of assassinations, and the list of future victims is public knowledge
NEWS: “The Ukrainian website Mytrovorets outlines Kyiv’s plan to take out people, the spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, has told Radio Sputnik, referring to the killing of war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky in Saint Petersburg.
The Russian diplomat warned that Tatarsky was part of the database of Mytrovorets and had received repeated death threats.
“Mytrovorets has only been online for a year or two. All these public figures from the West or who have just arrived here, have in the past disregarded our arguments about what this website is doing. Right now, they have no excuse and they cannot claim they didn’t know. They simply didn’t want to listen to our explanation. Mytrovorets is actually a map, a plan, a program for exterminating people at the hands of the Kyiv government and its accomplices”, Maria Zakharova said”.
NARRATIVE: Ukrainian authorities will continue to assassinate people close to the Kremlin based on a list published online.
Fact: The Ukrainian website Mytrovorets is a not a “blacklist”, but rather a database with information about people who threaten Ukraine’s security
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: The spokeswoman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, used the story about the death of pro-Kremlin Vladlen Tarasky, to once again blame Kyiv for committing alleged bomb attacks, claiming the Ukrainian website Mytrovorets has published a “blacklist” of people who will be killed by Ukrainian secret services. The Russian official claims Vladlen Tatarsky featured on this list, which is why he was killed. This is not the first time the Kremlin blames Ukraine for allowing the public to access information about people who are collaborating with the Russian army or who are subject to reasonable suspicion.
In March, when the website added the name of Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, accused of collaborating with Russia during the war in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry wrote the website is a genuine “list of people who have to be shot, against whom nationalists have taken utterly aggressive and monstrous measures”. At the same time, neither the OSCE or UNESCO or any other international media organization have paid any attention to this Ukrainian website, the Russian Foreign Ministry also pointed out.
In fact, Moscow hates the fact that lesser-known networks of people from a number of states who collaborate with Russia have been put in the spotlight after this Ukrainian website published certain information about them. The Russian propaganda claims the people in question will be assassinated. In fact, the website has published the names of dozens and hundreds of Ukrainians, alongside Russians and people of other nationalities, suspected of having facilitated the Russian acts of aggression. In January 2023, Oleksii Arestovych, a former adviser to the Ukrainian president, was included on this list after making a statement about a series of explosions in the city of Dnipro, which became the topic of anti-Ukrainian debates on Russian TV stations. Arestovich resigned straight away, but has been living in Kyiv. He even announced the launch of a new political project, without fearing he might be assassinated.
The very website describes itself as a “non-government center for research of signs of crimes against the national security of Ukraine, peace, humanity, and the international law”. Founded by a former adviser to the Interior Ministry, Anton Gerashchenko, a civil expert and militant, Mytrovorets has become a platform for exchanging information used by journalists, politicians and researchers to analyze the hybrid Russian-Ukrainian war and supporters of Russian false narratives.
For instance, shortly after the Romanian Senator Diana Iovanovici-Șoșoacă launched in Parliament a draft law for the annexation of Ukrainian territories, the Mytrovorets Center called on the relevant Romanian authorities to examine this initiative as “a declaration of intent from this citizen to commit acts deliberately targeted against the national security of Ukraine, the peace and security of mankind and international order and law, as well as other crimes”.
Since starting 2014 the website has published information about thousands of collaborators of Russia, the death of some of these people was used by the Kremlin as a reason to accuse Kyiv of Nazism and terrorism. The only issue that sparked heated debates in Ukraine regarding the activity of this website was the fact that it published personal data. According to Anton Gerashchenko, the website is entitled to publish any piece of information about people suspected of having betrayed the national interests of Ukraine under Article 17 in the Ukrainian Constitution on the protection of territorial sovereignty. The website is not directly linked to Ukrainian authorities and at no rate can it be considered a “blacklist”.
With regard to the killing of Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, Russian authorities are treating the case as “a high-profile murder”. At the same time, Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak has blamed the explosion on a “Russian internal political fight”, tweeting: “Spiders are eating each other in a jar”.
Veridica has debunked several false narratives about the actions of Ukrainian authorities. According to Russian propaganda, Ukraine is recruiting volunteers for its Nazi brigades, whereas the actions of Russian troops in the Kherson region are an example of humane behavior. The Russian media wrote that Moscow shows restraint when bombing Ukraine because it knows the population doesn’t support the neo-Nazi government. In addition, according to Russian propaganda, Half of Ukraine’s troops are foreign combatants, which means NATO is already taking part in the war, and the West is forcing Russia to expand its military operations in Ukraine.
