A video that appeared to be from the BBC suggesting Ukrainian missiles were behind the attack on a train station in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, where at least 52 people were killed on Friday, is fake, according to a statement released by the network.
“The BBC is taking action to have the video removed,” the BBC News Press Team account tweeted on Wednesday.
The video was aired on Russian state TV and shared on social media platforms, the BBC said, according to The Guardian.
This is not the first lie being spread during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has been using disinformation to shift blame for the atrocities its forces are committing on the ground.
Steve Rosenberg, the BBC’s Russia Editor, interviewed the widow of a Russian soldier killed during the war, who dismissed allegations that Russian forces are responsible for war crimes in Ukraine.
Later that evening, Rosenberg saw a picture of himself interviewing the woman being featured in a piece published on a Russian website.
“It’s easy to guess how the recently widowed resident of Stavropol must have felt talking to journalists from a country that is an accessory to the death of her husband,” the article reads, according to a translation provided by Rosenberg, suggesting the U.K. was in part responsible for the man’s death.
Russian state media sought to discredit photos and video depicting the atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine, while claiming Ukraine was behind those attacks as well. Russian President Vladimir Putin himself said Ukraine’s claims that Russian soldiers killed civilians in the city were “fake,” in a rare public appearance Tuesday.
During the same news conference, Putin said Russia “had no other choice” in continuing the war to “ensure Russia’s own security” and claimed the operation was going according to plan, despite failing to capture Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.
Meanwhile, Russian media are banned from using the words “war” and “invasion” to describe the invasion, which Putin says is a “special military operation” to help “denazify” Ukraine. Ukraine’s president is Jewish, and a United Nations investigation found no evidence to support Putin’s claims.
Last month, the last independent newspaper left in Russia was forced to suspend its operations, following a second warning by the country’s media regulator.