Issued on:
Did Ukrainians really set a Russian Orthodox church on fire? A video purporting to show just that has been circulating online since April 5, 2023. However, it turns out that this video was filmed in Russia more than ten years ago and shows an accidental fire.
If you only have a minute:
- A video of a Russian Orthodox Church on fire has been circulating on Twitter, Facebook and Telegram since April 5, 2023. The caption on the video claims that the church was set on fire by “radical members of the Ukrainian church” in a Ukrainian village.
- In turns out, however, that the same video appears in posts shared back in January 2013. Those posts say the video shows a fire in a Russian Orthodox Church in Russia. Investigators concluded at the time that the fire was an accident.
- The circulation of this video along with accusations that Ukrainians set the church fire comes amidst a backdrop of growing tensions between the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has historically been linked to the patriarchate in Russia. Ukrainian officials believe the Russian Orthodox Church has close links with the Russian government. And because of those accusations, Russia claims that members of the Orthodox Church are being “persecuted” in Ukraine.
The fact-check, in detail
A video showing dozens of people gathered as an Orthodox church goes up in flames has been circulating on social media since April 5, 2023.
The posts claim that the video was filmed in “the village of Novopoltavka”, located in the Mykolaiv oblast in southern Ukraine. Posts claim that the church belongs to the “Moscow Patriarchate”, like this tweet in English that has been shared more than 1,000 times.
Like many of the posts, this tweet in French, which has been shared more than 400 times, accuses “radical partisans of the…
