Kremlin propaganda fabricated a “news report” about a child allegedly killed by a Ukrainian serviceman in the Sumy region

Russian propaganda has once again accused Ukrainian servicemen of committing a serious crime, as part of the Kremlin’s long-standing narrative portraying the Armed Forces of Ukraine as “terrorists” and “killers”. Fact-checkers from the BezBrekhni project exposed this fabrication, which was partially based on a real tragedy.

To support the claim, propagandists used a screenshot allegedly taken from a Ukrainian media outlet, featuring the Ukrainian-language headline: “In the Sumy region, a serviceman threw a child out of a seventh-floor window”.

The accompanying text described the alleged crime in detail: a serviceman from the 71st Separate Jaeger Brigade, while on leave and heavily intoxicated, allegedly caused a disturbance, broke into the Skliar family’s apartment, and “pushed 13-year-old Ira out of a seventh-floor window”. The fake report also claimed that the serviceman had been detained and that the case had been transferred to the military prosecutor’s office.

Fact-checkers from BezBrekhni established that propagandists had used a genuine news report from the Sumy-based outlet Panorama and altered its headline.

The original headline read: “In the Sumy region, a child fell from a seventh-floor window”.

The original report concerned a tragic accident in Konotop. Journalists cited a Facebook post by the head of the Konotop City Council, Artem Semenikhin, who reported the death of 13-year-old schoolgirl and youth sports school student Ira Skliar “as a result of falling from the window of her own apartment”.

Thus, the original news story reported a tragic accident and suicide in which no servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were involved in any way. Propagandists altered the headline in order to create the image of a “criminal soldier” that suited their narrative.