Russian Media Falsely Reports Ukrainian Soldiers Escaped War, Seeking Asylum In Germany

Media outlets and social network pages in Russia have falsely reported that several Ukrainian servicemen sent to Germany for training have applied for asylum.

Russian television channel Tsargrad TV reported Tuesday that two Ukrainian personnel who arrived in Germany to train on Leopard 2 tanks have escaped from a military camp and asked their host country for political asylum.

Tsargrad TV is owned by Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeev, a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Silovoy Blok, another Russian media outlet, and the Telegram page KazakoV, which was identified by Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform as a pro-war channel, also reported of the Ukrainian tankers seeking asylum in Germany,

Both Silovoy Blok and KazakoV used a seemingly altered screenshot of an article from the British newspaper The Financial Times as a source for their reports.

"Two people from among the Ukrainians who arrived for training requested political asylum in Germany due to their unwillingness to die in a senseless war. They argue that an increase in the supply of weapons to Ukraine will in no way contribute to the victory of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the second paragraph of the article read.

However, the paragraph was nowhere to be seen in the still-available article, originally published last week.

"Two people familiar with the preparations said everything was ready to begin teaching the Ukrainian military to deploy the modern battle tanks after several European nations last week pledged to send them to Kyiv after months of deliberations and Ukrainian pressure," the second paragraph of the Financial Times piece currently states.

Cached versions of the article uploaded to the Internet Archive, a publicly available digital library, also showed that the piece did not include the paragraph shared by Silovoy Blok and KazakoV.

Russia has been blatantly spreading false information about its invasion of Ukraine, PBS reported.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has falsely claimed that Russia did not attack Ukraine, while Putin maintained that his country's "special military operation" sought the denazification and demilitarization of its western neighbor.

Several countries, including the United States and member nations of the European Union, have acknowledged Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine as unprovoked and unjustified.

The current Ukrainian government is also not a fascist dictatorship, and neither was it ever associated with the German Nazi Party.

Germany approved the transfer of its domestically-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine following months of pressure on the government of German chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Several European countries operate variants of the vehicle, but their re-export would need the approval of Germany.

In addition to approving transfers of Leopard 2s to Ukraine, Germany has also pledged to send around 14 Leopard 2A6 tanks from its stock.