Preposterous and Unsubstantiated Claim that a Russian Rocket Killed 200 NATO Officers in a Bunker in Ukraine
In the video with the post, analyst Gilbert Doctorow does not present a single source of evidence for his claim that during a missile attack of Russia, NATO generals hiding in a bunker in Ukraine were killed. His only attribution is the “Russians”. According to official Ukrainian sources, NATO bases are opened only on the territory of Member-States of the Alliance, while Ukraine does not even have the status of a NATO candidate-country. US Defence Department, for foreign fact-checkers assessed the claims about the allegedly hit bunker with NATO officers as untrue
We are fact-checking a post published on the social network Facebook (Screenshot here) claiming the following:
25.04.2023
This information is the GREATEST since the beginning of the war. RADIO SILENCE FROM MSM media.
Why – because as retaliation for attacking a Russian city, Russia used a supersonic missile that hit an underground strategic bunker full of NATO chiefs.
As part of the post, an interview was shared with Gilbert Doctorow who is presented as an “independent international analyst” in the broadcasted television program. In his television address, Doctorow says:
After the Ukrainians staged a sabotage mission in Bryansk Oblast (part of the Russian Federation) in which several people were killed, the Russians staged a revenge attack and used, for the first time, six of their supersonic missiles Kinzhal. One of those struck Lviv… that is the Western capital of Ukraine. This conventionally harmful missile, because of the laws of physics, made an enormous impact which enabled that rocket to decend and destroy a deeply built concrete bunker where 300 top Western and Ukrainian officers had been managing the communication on the behalf of NATO in Ukraine. The Russians yesterday announced, very discreetly, that 200 of those people killed – were high generals and high NATO officers.
The European Platform for Democratic Elections assessed Doctorow (the analyst in the video of the post) as politically biased. Doctorow’s statement that the missile struck a bunker with 300 NATO officers in Ukraine, followed after the Russian missile attack on Ukraine that took place on 9th March 2023, when Moscow used a hypersonic missile.
27th April 2023, however, U.S. Department of Defense, through its public affairs officer Mayor Charlie Dietz, in an e-mail communication with the fact-checkers of Lead Stories regarding the alleged bunker with NATO officers being hit, said:
All of these claims are not true. Russia enjoys creating disinformation.
9th March 2023, the fact-checkers of Stop Fake report that Russia performed mass bombing on Ukrainian territory, including the region Lviv. According to Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson of Ukrainian Air Forces, Russia had fired 6 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles on 9th March in Ukraine. As reported by the President of the territorial municipality Zolochiv, Igor Grinkov, one of the missiles struck Zolochiv.
This missile attack, however, did not strike the underground NATO bunker but hit two residential buildings in the village Bolshaya Olshanitsa causing the death of five people, report the fact-checkers of Stop Fake.
They also added that “the entire theory of the existence of some secret NATO bunker in Lviv is absurd”.
Lviv is located 50 kilometres from the Polish border, a NATO Member-State. Common sense is that if a meeting of NATO generals and the Armed Forces of Ukraine was to take place, then that meeting would have be done in a secure place in a NATO Member-State, Stop Fake’s fact-checkers wrote.
In the post we are fact-checking, analyst Gilbert Doctorow does not present a single source of evidence for his claim that during the missile attack that Russia actually performed – NATO generals hiding in a bunker in Ukraine were killed. His only attribution is – the “Russians”. This disinformation was also published in Greek media, as well as in media with close ties with Kremlin.
Adviser to the Chief of Cabinet of the President of Ukraine, Serhii Leshchenko stated:
NATO bases are opened only on the territory of NATO Member-States, and Ukraine does not even have the status of a candidate for NATO.
Fact-checkers of Gwara Media inform that until 30th March even the leading pro-Kremlin media did not publish articles about the non-existent attack and destruction of a NATO base in Ukraine.
It would be difficult for any state to hide such significant losses of 300 people, especially if they are foreign citizens, reports Gwara Media.
As far as the location of NATO bases is concerned, according to the Ukrainian Constitution, specifically, Article 17, foreign military bases are not allowed on Ukrainian territory.
Otherwise, Kinzhal missiles are presented as invincible in Russian propaganda and that they are “a nightmare for the West”. They even go as far as to state absolute lies about the US President, Joe Biden, who allegedly stated that he “was afraid of Kinzhal”.
Due to the above-noted facts, we assess the fact-checked post as untrue. It is not true that Kinzhal missiles struck a bunker full of NATO chiefs in Ukraine.
All comments and remarks regarding this and other Vistinomer articles, correction and clarification requests as well as suggestions for fact-checking politicians’ statements and political parties’ promises can be submitted by using this form