Russian forces struck a maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, killing three people and injuring over a dozen.
The photos and videos of the aftermath horrified many. One photo of an injured pregnant woman being carried out on a stretcher captured the sheer brutality of the bombing for everyone watching around the world. The young woman in the photo died later that day as doctors tried to save her life.
Russian propaganda began to spread online in the hours after the bombing, claiming that the photos were staged and that a pregnant Ukrainian woman was caught in the middle.
Credit: Evgeniy Maloletka / AP / Shutterstock
A Russian misinformation campaign tried to flip the blame and attempt to disprove the reality of the deadly attack on the Mariupol hospital, but they failed. She is a popular internet personality in Ukraine, known as "gixie beauty" on social media. Her work was used as a ruse to cast her in the role of a crisis actor, a tactic used by far-right groups and conspiracy theorists in the U.S.
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The photos were taken at the scene of the hospital bombing. The reason she is there is obvious to anyone who looks at the photos on her account, which were posted before Russia began its war in Ukraine. Vishegirskaya was a patient at the maternity hospital.
The baby girl was born days after the bombing.
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The Russian Telegram channel called "Signal" has half a million subscribers, and it is likely that the Russian government was behind the campaign. Vice uncovered a paid propaganda campaign that showed how influential Russians were being paid to spread pro-Kremlin propaganda.
The Telegram message states that the girl who was photographed in the rubble of the maternity hospital in Mariupol was a model. The same model appeared in all three scenes.
The channel referred to the Podgurskaya as Vishegirskaya's maiden name.
The hospital was evacuated and the photos were staged according to the Telegram post. Two photos from the bombing scene, one showing an injured pregnant woman on a stretcher and the other showing a pregnant woman walking through the rubble, were included with the post. They were next to each other with photos from her account. The woman in the photos was identified by the Signal channel.
Russian state and diplomatic accounts spread the lies about the Mariupol maternity hospital.
The Russian Embassy in the UK claimed that they played two different women at the hospital. The Russian Embassy referred to her by her maiden name.
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She actually played roles of both pregnant women on the photos, and the Russian Embassy repeated the crisis actor lies about her.
The Russian Embassy's lies were removed from the platform.
The conspiracy theory was spread online by pro-Russia social media personalities.
The pregnant women who survived in the maternity house targeted by Russia were the subject of pro-Kremlin propaganda.
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The false claim was further spread when Maajid Nawaz, a former British radio show host who recently gained prominence after discussing COVID-19 conspiracy theories on Joe Rogan's show, shared Dubovikova's post.
Shortly after it was posted, Dubovikova's tweet was taken down.
It didn't take long, however, for the conspiracy about the pregnantInstagram post to gain traction. The misinformation started to leave harassing comments on the photos on the social media site.
The images that came out of the bombing in Mariupol have been some of the most horrible yet. Photos and videos that were being passed around on platforms like Telegram, the very same platform where the disinformation originated from, actually showed the gruesomely real injuries that never made it onto mainstream media outlets.
The maternity hospital in Mariupol was hit by a Russian airstrike. The pregnant woman can be seen in photos walking through the rubble. She gave birth to a daughter after the bombing. A pregnant woman who was injured in the hospital bombing is seen in a different picture. Multiple news outlets have confirmed that the woman on the stretcher did not survive. Her unborn child did not.
Thanks to the quick actions of journalists, fact checkers, and social media activists, this particular Russian misinformation campaign did not change the narrative. There is still online propaganda about Russia's war in Ukraine.
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