Propagandists are spreading information on social networks, especially in their Slovak segment, that pro-Russian blogger Gonzalo Lira allegedly died from torture in a Ukrainian prison. They say the US State Department has confirmed that Lira died in Ukraine. However, this is fake.

The lack of evidence for the propagandists’ thesis was noticed in the VoxCheck project. Fact-checkers have argued that there is no evidence that Gonzalo Lira was a victim of torture in a Ukrainian prison. Moreover, neither Ukraine nor the United States confirmed the blogger’s death.

Gonzalo Lira is a pro-Russian blogger with Chilean and US citizenship. He lived in Kharkiv and actively disseminated Russian fakes on social networks and on his YouTube channel. On May 1, 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine detained him for distributing fake news justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine and an administrative violation, namely illegally crossing the border with Hungary. On January 12, 2024, Keith Klarenberg, a writer for The Grayzone, tweeted about the death of Gonzalo Lira, noting that his family had confirmed this. Subsequently, pro-Russian propagandist Tucker Carlson claimed that Lira died in prison. The authenticity of the alleged letter from Lira, in which he described his state of health, cannot yet be verified. This information is published only on pro-Russian resources. All mentions of Lira on the US State Department website date back to January 22, 2024. No representative of the institution confirmed information about his death.

The topic of Lira is especially actively discussed among Trumpists and cospirologists. In the American information space, it arose again in December 2023, when the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi came to the United States. Then, on Network X, businessman Elon Musk expressed his vision of the rule of law and demanded that Lira be released because the United States is helping Ukraine financially.

Propagandists spread such fakes to discredit Ukraine. They say that there really is no freedom of speech, and Ukraine neutralizes everyone who criticizes its actions. Detector Media has already refuted other Russian inventions regarding the identity of Gonzalo Lira.