A Manipulation Lessens the Ukrainian Death Toll in the Russian Aggression

Photo: Wilfried Pohnke on Pixabay

The post is manipulative and presents false information with the intent to belittle the Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Ukrainian death toll. Moreover, somewhat of a comparison is made with the children killed, as an attempt to belittle the number of child victims in Ukraine, writing in disparagement that just one orphan child was killed in Mariupol. Killing innocent children in both Ukraine and Palestine is shameful and tragic and it cannot be subject to comparisons and disparagement

We are fact-checking a post on Facebook (screenshot here) that spreads lies and manipulations about the war in Ukraine, creating an unfounded parallel with the war in Gaza and claiming that global media were not reporting about the Palestinian victims.

I don’t know whether you know that under the ruins in Gaza, there are approximately 10,000 civilians, women, and children buried alive…
They are screaming and shrieking, wounded and torn by grenades.
No one can approach them because of the ongoing bombings and shellings.
You cannot find this in a horror film, but you also cannot find it in any news bulletin, news piece, or online media. Neither European nor American. For the sake of comparison, I wanted to see the ratio to Mariupol… for which such notoriety and panic was aroused, depicting it as the greatest massacre after the Second World War.
In Mariupol, 4 civilians were killed, out of whom two were aides of the Azov Regiment Azov (a wife and a brother) and just one child, who was parentless and who had run away from an orphanage. And that was in a period of 90 days of full-scale military actions. In Gaza, 11,000 corpses of civilians and approximately 4,000 children under the age of 10 were found within 8 days.
But you will not find this anywhere in the news!, specifies the post, among the other claims.

Firstly, the post claims that there was no information about the victims in Gaza in any news bulletins or online media, either European or American. This is sheer disinformation. Both global and national media inform regularly on the situation in Gaza, both about the victims and the humanitarian and health crisis the Palestinians are in. Just opening the websites of some of them is enough to realize that.

For example, if you visit the website of BBC, you will notice that it is full of both news and reports from Gaza. Among the many articles you will find the one titled ”Israel-Gaza War: the Brutal Impact on Gaza’s Children” or ”Cars Race to Gaza Hospital with Injured Children”. This video with sensitive content depicts the sufferings of both children and parents.

The CNN case is similar. It constantly covers the events related to Gaza. The article ”In Gaza, being a mother is a matter of life and death” describes the lives of mothers, children, and pregnant women during the Israeli invasion. In one video, Nada Bashir from CNN reports on the impact of Israel’s siege and bombardment of Gaza as a growing number of children are killed or displaced.

ABC News has a separate “Israel-Gaza” section where one can follow the news on the war and victims in Gaza live. Here one can also find videos of devastated Gaza and the extraction of victims from under the ruins.

On the hour, the events in Gaza are also covered by France24. In one of the many videos on YouTube, France24 is reporting on the “terrifying hardship of children under the siege in the Middle East in conditions of brutal war between Israel and Hamas”.

Therefore, one cannot say that the news on the Gaza victims cannot be found in the global American and European media.

As far as the second part of the post relating to the war in Ukraine is concerned, it is quite manipulative. It makes a comparison between the number of victims in Mariupol and Gaza, and the post claims that ” such notoriety and panic” was aroused as to present the situation as ”the greatest massacre after the Second World War”, although in this Ukrainian city ” 4 civilians were killed, out of whom two were aides of the Azov Regiment Azov (a wife and a brother) and just one child, who was parentless and who had run away from an orphanage”. This is not true and can be easily checked.

Truthmeter wrote about the biggest Russian attacks on populated areas in Ukraine that took away a large number of civilian victims. Regarding Mariupol, as presented by Al Jazeera, the city was cut off and placed under siege, while Ukrainian authorities estimated that approximately 25,000 civilians were killed in the brutal months that followed. At least 95 percent of Mariupol was destroyed. Similar information can also be found on Wikipedia.

During the Russian siege, the Red Cross described the situation in Mariupol as “apocalyptic” while Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of engineering a major humanitarian crisis in the city. Ukrainian officials reported that approximately 25,000 civilians had been killed and that at least 95% of the city had been destroyed during the fighting, primarily by large-scale Russian bombardments. In an official statement, the United Nations confirmed the deaths of 1,348 civilians in Mariupol but warned that the true death toll was likely thousands higher while also reporting that 90% of the city’s residential buildings had been damaged or completely destroyed, Wikipedia specifies.

Therefore, it is more than certain that it is not true that only 4 civilians were killed in Mariupol, as the post claims. The City Council of Mariupol published lists of children killed by the Russian occupiers in the Donetsk region in 2022, mainly during the siege of Mariupol.

The resistance forces of the city of Mariupol managed to take hold of a list of the children killed in Donetsk Oblast in 2022. Mariupol children were registered in the morgues of the temporarily occupied settlements of Mariupol, Manhush, and Novoazovsk. The number confirmed by the occupiers is 101 children killed in Mariupol during merciless Russian bombings of the city, stated the City Council.

Hence, the number of killed children in Mariupol is not one, as the post claims, but 101 children.

So, this is a case of dangerous manipulation with the intent to belittle the Russian aggression of Ukraine and the civilian death toll. Moreover, somewhat of a comparison is made with killed children as an attempt to minimize the death toll of children in Ukraine by understating that just one orphaned child was killed in Mariupol. Even if it was just one child – which is not true – nevertheless every victim is worth mentioning. Killing innocent children in both Ukraine and Palestine is shameful and tragic and it cannot be subject to comparison and disparagement.

Due to all of the above-noted, the post fact-checked is assessed as untrue.

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