FALSE: Zelenskyi replied that he did not know who attacked the Kerch Bridge — video

FALSE: Zelenskyi replied that he did not know who attacked the Kerch Bridge — video

30 August 2023
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Verification within Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program

On July 17, 2023, on the day of the attack on the Kerch Bridge, a video began to circulate on the Internet, in which the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, allegedly answered with a smile “I don’t know” when asked about who attached the bridge.

However, this is false. At the NATO summit in Vilnius, Volodymyr Zelenskyi answered “I don’t know” to the question of when Ukraine will receive American ATACMS missiles.

Screenshot of the video

In the background behind the president, there is an inscription “Vilnius | Summit”, which took place on July 11-12, 2023 in the capital of Lithuania.

Screenshot of the video

We have found the full video of the communication between the President of Ukraine and media representatives following the NATO Summit in Vilnius. In the video, a journalist from “24 channel” stated that the White House reported that during the meeting, US President Joseph Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyi were supposed to discuss the supply of ATACMS.

Screenshot of a video of Zelenskyi’s conversation with journalists after the NATO summit

When asked when Kyiv will receive long-range missiles, the head of state replied that he did not know. Journalists did not ask questions about the Kerch Bridge in the video, Zelenskyi did not mention this topic either.

ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles are long-range guided missiles that are launched from M142 (HIMARS), M270, and M270A1 rocket launchers. The maximum target damage range reaches 300 km.

On July 17, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the illegally built bridge that connected the temporarily occupied Crimea and the Russian mainland. That is, the summit took place before the explosions on the Kerch Bridge, and therefore the president of Ukraine could not comment on them.

In a CNN comment, the head of SSU Vasyl Maliuk said that the attack on the Kerch Bridge on July 17 was a special operation of the Ukrainian special services. He also provided exclusive videos showing the moment of impact. The bridge was struck by the Sea Baby surface drone, which, according to the official, had been developed by the SSU for months. The drone damaged the road surface, traffic was blocked on the bridge.

Screenshots of the Kerch Bridge attack video on July 17, 2023

The Ukrainian military strikes an illegally built bridge to cut off the supply of military cargo to the temporarily occupied southern regions of Ukraine, including Crimea. Maliuk also confirmed that Ukrainian special services were behind the attack on the Kerch Bridge on October 8, 2022.

Earlier, we refuted the fake, as if the visitors of the bar were singing “The Kerch Bridge is on fire! Your defense is terrified!”.

Attention

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