Unfounded Claims That a Photo from 2014 Shows a Ukrainian Boy with Nazi Tattoos

The photograph of the boy is nine years old and it was made at the International Tattoo Festival in Kyiv, that in 2014 had its 10th edition. According to the festival announcement, many tattoo lovers participated, not only from different parts of Ukraine, but also from other countries. Hence, it is impossible to tell with certainty where the boy with Nazi tattoos comes from, or to claim he is Ukrainian.

A photograph of a boy with Nazi-symbol tattoos appeared once again on Facebook, with a claim that he is Ukrainian. There is no confirmation for this claim.

THE FASCIST
The collective West in unison claims that Putin is a dictator, who wants to destroy a sovereign nation with aggression.
The only thing they cannot agree on is the use of terminology. Some call him the “New Hitler”, others a “Totalitarian”… thus, a compromise is usually found in the term “Fascist Aggression”.
And of course, everyone has the right to fight against the fascist aggression, even this poor Ukrainian boy… Even he has the right to have ideals!, says the analyzed post that comes with a photograph of the boy.

The post, however, does not offer any evidence that the boy is connected with Ukraine in any way.
If you search the photo on TinEye, you will see that the photo first appeared in 2015.

Russian media first used this photo as an illustration related to Ukraine in 2018, reported the Czech fact-checking site fakticke.info in 2018.

„Truthmeter“ also searched for the photo via the Yandex search engine and discovered that the photo of the boy was nine years old and it was made at the International Tattoo Festival that took place for the 10th time in Kyiv in 2014.

According to the festival announcement, many tattoo lovers participated, not only from different parts of Ukraine, but also from other countries. Hence, it is impossible to tell with certainty where the boy with Nazi tattoos comes from, or to claim he is Ukrainian.

As a reminder, Ukraine banned the promotion of Nazism in 2015.

From all that was noted above, we can conclude that the fact-checked post lacks context. There is simply no information which can confirm if the person is an Ukrainian resident or not. Even if he was from Ukraine, his political inclinations are unknown, i.e. one cannot say with any degree of certainty if that person supports the Ukrainian authorities and their fight against the Russian aggression or he is a supporter of Russia from the occupied regions such as Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhya, Kherson or Crimea. 22.5 percent of the territory of Ukraine is occupied by the Russian Federation and supporters of Russia and people fighting in the regional military formations, side by side with the Russian army, operate in these regions. Therefore, one cannot claim with any degree of certainty and confidence where and against whom this boy was fighting (who is now an adult, because the photo is 9 years old).

Not to mention the fact that tattooed faces with Nazi symbols are not something new even in Russia. The Russian state media journalist who covers the war in Ukraine – whose alleged goal is “denazification” – was also covered in Nazi tattoos on the head and on the body; while the commander in the mercenary Wagner Group, Dmitry Utkin, whose task was to kill the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the beginning of the war, is also known to have Nazi-symbol tattoos.

This article was developed within the framework of the project Promoting Access to Reliable News to Counter Disinformation, implemented by the Metamorphosis Foundation. The article, that was previously published in Truthmeter, was enabled with the support of the American non-profit foundation NED (National Endowment for Democracy). The contents of the article is the responsibility of the author and do not always reflect the positions of Metamorphosis Foundation, NED or their partners.

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