The project "Beyond the News" warned about a photo that has been "circulating" on the Internet for two months. Fact-checkers noted that the people in the frame are Chinese tourists in a Russian paramilitary amusement park, and not special forces of the People's Liberation Army of China, who are sent to Ukraine to fight in the name of the Russian volunteer army or the military from the joint exercises of the Russian Federation and China.

On August 17, the Russian Federation did indeed report on joint military exercises with China, which are to be held in Russia from August 30 to September 5.

In fact, the photo shows Chinese tourists in a Russian paramilitary amusement park near St. Petersburg, which hosts military-style corporate parties, team buildings and birthdays. The description of the park says that “a group from China was dressed in the uniform of Russian special forces and equipped with equipment:

“Our company welcomed very important guests from China. Tourists from friendly countries have long been taken to private army training grounds to give them new opportunities and experiences. We ordered a Chinese flag and stripes, developed a safety technique for the sunset in Chinese. Our training area is one of the most interesting and safe today,” the archived publication says.

The same photo was also posted by the amusement park on another page of its website on July 23 under the heading: “Organized a one-day tour for a delegation from China.”

After requesting AFP fact checkers to the park administration, all photos of the event were deleted and are available only in the archive. In addition, the photographer who filmed this event assured the checkers that the people in the photo were tourists. In addition, during official exercises it is unacceptable to simultaneously use flags of different countries on chevrons, and if Chinese soldiers served in the Russian armed forces, they would wear only Russian insignia, said Elzbieta Mikos-Skuza, a professor at the Faculty of Law at Warsaw University.