Debunking false rumours that Ukraine sold Russia its French-made artillery

So I’m now for truth or fake, and I’m joined for that by Vedica Bahl. Welcome to the programme Vedica. Today we’re talking about rumours that the Ukrainian army sold the Cesar artillery that had been given to the country by France and they went out and sold it to Russia. Tell us more about these rumours. Yes Tom, that’s right, this is a French made scissor. It is a self-propelled howitzer that can strike targets from up to 55 kilometres away. Since the start of Russia’s invasion, France has supplied Ukraine with about 49 of these machines, with Paris planning to produce even more up the scale of production and sell even more to aid Kiev in the war effort. Now Internet users are claiming online that Ukraine has actually sold off two of those Cesar machinery to the Russians, with the sale price hitting $120,000 per unit. Now it’s worth noting that this is an extremely major piece of French artillery. They are very well reputed for their precision and according to the sales director of the group that actually produces these, these have been valued at around €5 million per cannon. So not only is that figure of 120,000 per unit doubtful and massively undervalued, we’ve we’ve also through our fact checking managed to confirm that these claims are entirely false. Tom, OK, how were you able to do that? But how did you manage to write this off as being fake news and and tell us a bit more about your fact checking process? Yes, Tom. Well, if we start at the source of this rumour, the earliest entry of this claim online actually dates back to two years ago to July of 2022 in this media online called the Baltic Word. And as we can see from that headline that it is very much framed as the revelation of a scandal. Now, despite this article being cited across social media is actually not based on anything concrete at all. In fact, this media has been heavily, heavily criticized for spreading disinformation. It regularly has been used of publishing articles by anonymous online personas, often with Baltic sounding names that are very critical of Baltic state government and also NATO as a whole. This media has also been previously criticized for having links with the Russian smear campaign called Operation Ghostwriter and as researched by DFR Lab which is the anti disinformation organization run by by the Atlantic Council. They found in their research, as we can see there that Kremlin owned and pro Kremlin media often amplify Baltic word articles in their own media. They also cite Baltic word headlines in their own output as well. So this does raise several questions there about the site affiliation with Moscow and its reliability as a source. The original article also cites a particular French based lawyer called Hajis de Castelno who previously two years ago shared claims very similar to these ones about thank you Michael, we are the ones paying about Cesar’s being seized by Russia that he also regularly shares pro Kremlin ideas and called the Butcher massacre a heavily staged production. And the body of the article also multiple times uses the words unidentified French sources there. And they also claim later on very strangely, that the sale happened based on that previous tweet by that French based lawyer which has no basis or official backing in it. But overall, Tom, this, this, this, this information has no solid grounding. There’s zero credible sourcing in the body of this text. And it seems very much to be an attempt to convince Western audiences that Ukraine is not to be trusted with the sophisticated heavy weaponry supplied by the Wester. OK, well, thank you very much indeed for debunking that for us, Vedika Bahel in today’s edition of Truth or Fate. Thank you.