“An Italian citizen” fighting in Ukraine: the Chechen president’s intox

Published on: 08/07/2022 – 15:21 A video published on July 3 on the Telegram account of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, a supporter of the Russian president, shows documents which were allegedly abandoned by the Ukrainian army. According to him, an Italian passport is among the documents. This is actually the document of a Ukrainian citizen. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, videos of foreign passports have been regularly published by pro-Russians to prove the presence of foreign mercenaries alongside the Ukrainians. Verification in a nutshell Ramzan Kadyrov has published a video showing, according to him, the identity document of an “Italian citizen” fighting in Ukraine. The video looks authentic. According to the Chechen president, it was taken by Apta Alaudinov, the head of a Chechen detachment in Ukraine. The document that can be seen in the images is an Italian identity card – an identification document that foreigners can also request if they reside in an Italian municipality. This document does not belong to an Italian citizen, but to a Ukrainian citizen: it is clearly specified on the card “Nationality: Ukrainian” (see screenshot below). The claim that the document of an “Italian citizen” was found among documents of the Ukrainian army is therefore false. Screenshot of the identity document, which reads “Nationality: Ukrainian” in Italian. © Observers The verification in detailOn July 3, 2022, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov published a viral video on his Telegram channel. According to him, it shows belongings and documents abandoned by the Ukrainian army: we see a Ukrainian passport, various documents in Russian, insignia and a beret which would have belonged to Ukrainian fighters. But it is above all the presence of an identity document in Italian which seems to have challenged the president. On his Telegram account, he comments: “What can’t be found among the abandoned belongings of Nazis, Banderites and Shaitans? [noms utilisés par la propagande russe pour qualifier les soldats ukrainiens, NDLR] ? This time the passport of an Italian citizen fell into the hands of Apta Alaudinov, an assistant to the head of the Chechen Republic [Apta Alaudinov est chef d’un détachement tchétchène en Ukraine, NDLR].” Screenshot of a July 3 post on the Telegram account of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov: he claims to show the document of an Italian citizen. © Observers Foreign fighters in Ukraine? Since the start of the war in Ukraine, pro-Russian accounts have shared videos aimed at proving the presence of foreign mercenaries who came to the aid of the Ukrainian army. Among these videos, some are fake, such as this video claiming to show the passport of an American mercenary previously analyzed by our writing.But foreign volunteers are indeed fighting alongside the Ukrainian army on the front lines.However, it is difficult to estimate their real number.This video does not show the document of an “Italian citizen” fighting with the UkrainiansLooking carefully at the document presented as that of an “Italian citizen” fighting with the Ukrainians, it is possible to read “Nationality: Ukrainian” in Italian. Google search shows that it is indeed an Italian identity card. This identity card can be issued to foreign nationals living in Italy. The identity card of this Ukrainian man was issued by the municipality of Foggia, Italy. Example of an Italian identity card issued to a Russian national, posted on the website of the Italian association “Adopt an adult”. © adottareunmaggiorenne Who is this man? The role of the owner of the identity document is unknown. Any man of Ukrainian nationality aged between 18 and 60 is obliged to take up arms, according to a decree of general mobilization established by the president Ukrainian on February 24.Some Ukrainians residing abroad and returning to their country at the outbreak of the war were unable to leave Ukraine because of this decree.The Telegram channel of Ramzan Kadyrov, a relay of the Russian propagandaThe video, which has nearly 900,000 views, was shared on Ramzan Kadyrov’s personal Russian-language channel on Telegram, which has more than 2,500,000 subscribers. The Chechen president also posted the video on his Twitter account in Arabic, racking up over 17,000 views. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The day after the Russian invasion, on February 25, the president announced the deployment of thousands of his soldiers, the “Kadyrovtsy”, in Ukraine. On his Telegram channel, Ramzan Kadyrov regularly takes the stage in videos aimed at showing the power of the Chechen troops. His channel is a relay of Russian propaganda on the war in Ukraine: he publishes videos there showing the help of Russian and Chechen soldiers given to Ukrainian civilians, he encourages his troops or shares extracts from television news from state channels. Russians. In April, he posted a video showing Chechen forces celebrating the fall of Mariupol behind one of the city’s many destroyed buildings. On July 7, he also posted a satirical video depicting a fake surrender by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.