The BBC catches Russian media fabricating dead 10-year-old Ukrainian girl

Russian media reported the story of a 10-year-old dead girl who never existed, the BBC found

(Image credit: BBC/YouTube)

published 8 April 2015

Russian media widely reported the tragic story of a 10-year-old girl killed by Ukrainian government shelling in the Petrovsky region of Donetsk, in rebel-held eastern Ukraine. The only problem: The girl never existed, discovered BBC News reporters Natalia Antelava and Abdujalil Abdurasulov. Antelava spoke with people in the region, including the morgue director, and nobody knew the girl or recalled shelling, although they heard the story on TV.

Finally, a Russian journalist told Antelava that the girl is a fiction that they were forced to report. "You get used to lies in this war, but sometimes the cynicism, like right now, it's just mind-boggling," Antelava says in her dispatch, "because people that we talked to believe that a child has died, and that's the sort of information that they get that fuels hatred that drives this war." Watch her remarkable report below. —Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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