Facebook (FB) pages published a post claiming a female Ukrainian fighter jet pilot perished in the ongoing conflict between her country and Russia. But it erroneously carried photos of a beauty queen and a model.
The post that appeared on March 3 identified the pilot as “Natasha Perakov” and described her as the first female Ukrainian pilot who died after being severely injured in the nearly three-week-old crisis.
It carried photos of two women posing in a swimsuit, holding a gun and wearing a military uniform. The first is former Miss Ukraine Anastasiia Lenna and the other is amateur model Ksyusha Rusin. There was no photo of Perakov. And there are no reports of a pilot with that name who perished recently.
The erroneous post uploaded five photos of Lenna. Three of the images are from her official Instagram page, where she showcased her airsoft guns and said people should “stand with Ukraine.” The other two were published by the official FB page of Bangkok-based Miss Grand International, where Leena won a special award in 2015.
In Lenna’s official Instagram account, she clarified that she is not part of Ukraine’s military and that she is just a “normal human” who is an airsoft sports enthusiast.
The other photos in the circulating erroneous post showed Rusin wearing a military uniform, which was traced to a Russian store page which sells military-themed clothing, and one where she is holding a drink, which was taken from a 2018 post on her personal FB page.
Other media organizations have debunked a similar claim featuring another photo of a woman – also named Natasha Perakov – dying in combat.
FB pages Say Something about this POST (created on Dec. 31, 2019), Mood (Jan. 30, 2022) and Soksay TV (Nov. 1, 2019) published the erroneous posts that have garnered more than 9,500 reactions, 672 comments and 2,270 shares.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
