FAKE: Ukrainian refugees burned down a house in Germany

The alleged plot of the German publication Bild about how Ukrainian refugees burned down a house in Wulfen, Germany, is being spread on social networks. Other publications refer to the text publication on the Bild website. Refugees from Ukraine apparently tried to burn the flag of the russian federation, but the fire spread to the walls. Moreover, the story has several contradictory interpretations at the same time. Some publications say that the house belonged to a man and he left it to the refugees. And in the video, the owner, a woman named Natalie Michalski, is crying behind the burnt-out apartment.

In fact, it is a fake: Bild did not publish a story or an article about the fact that refugees from Ukraine started a fire in a German house. And the fake story was edited from a video published back in 2013 and a fragment of a real Bild story from 2021.

In May 2022, russian mass media, Telegram channels and social media users began to spread the story of Bild, which first shows how a russian flag is being burned in a room with the help of a Tesla coil, then how the entire house is burning from the outside, and finally an interview on to whom the owner of the destroyed house is crying.

The “marek415” watermark is visible in the far-right corner of the Tesla coil video. This fake was also refuted by independent foreign fact-checkers from AFP. They turned to an Instagram user with this nickname, who turned out to be Marek Novotny, a student at the Prague Technical University. In a comment to AFP, he confirmed that the video was his, but he has already removed it from his page to prevent it from being used in similar fakes.

A reverse image search on Google Images revealed that a video of the house allegedly burning from the outside was posted on YouTube back in 2013. It shows a fire in the German Waluf. In the fake plot, they simply used an excerpt of this video. 

So, Bild’s story about the fire started by Ukrainian refugees is a montage of video clips from different years.

Previously, a screenshot of an alleged publication on the Bild website with the headline: “Ukrainian refugees wanted to burn the russian flag and as a result set fire to the house in which they were staying” was shared on social networks.

@BILD war es einfach nur "ein Haus in dem sie untergebracht waren"? Oder "ein Haus anderer in dem sie untergebracht waren"? Bild drückt sich mit seinen Formulierungen gerne knapp an der Wahrheit vorbei um größere Empörung zu vermeiden. ??

— Cure_for_Sins (@CureSins) May 17, 2022

AFP has reached out to the police officer at the Dessau-Rosslau station responsible for Anhalt-Bitterfeld, the police station under whose jurisdiction the town of Wulfen falls. The officer stated that he was not aware of any fires caused by Ukrainian refugees.