Detox. No, the Russian military did not stage a book burning during its 2022 invasion of Ukraine

Would the Russian army which claims to be fighting the Nazis in Ukraine organize book burnings, like the German National Socialist Party? The accusation was made by several European public figures, including Swedish statesman Carl Bildtor the British Ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons.

” On May 10, 1933, Nazis burned books in Berlin. Today, Russian soldiers are also burning books, including those telling the history of Ukraine », also denounces the physicist Etienne Klein. All refer to a photo that actually shows a pile of books burning, and some titles suggest that they are indeed history books in Ukrainian.

But as several Internet users have noted, we find traces of this photo well before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Some Ukrainian press articles thus explain that it would have been taken in Crimea in 2014, in the context of the annexation of the region by Russia. Digging a little deeper, we discover that if the photo is indeed authentic, it is in fact even older, since it dates back to 2010.

According to a photo report published at the time by a local media, books concerning the recent history of Ukraine were burned at the end of a demonstration in Simferopol on March 14, 2010. This burning was orchestrated by two pro-Russian Ukrainian political parties. That this photo comes out today only confirms that war and truth don’t mix… Whichever side we’re talking about.

find rehab Monday to Thursday, on the show 28 Minutes on Arte, presented by Elisabeth Quin.
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/28minutes/
On Twitter : https://twitter.com/artedesintox
On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/28minutesARTE
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artedesintox/
On the Arte website: http://28minutes.arte.tv/