DISINFO: Pro-Russian woman dies at Ukrainian police station in Odesa after interrogation
SUMMARY
A woman, who was trying to install a Russian flag on the pedestal of the removed monument to the Russian Empress Catherine II in Odesa, died at a police station. While doing so, she was verbally abused, threatened and beaten by a passing crowd. She was later handed over to the police and said during an interrogation that she supported Russia and would never forgive what is happening now and what happened in Donbas. She tragically died at the detention centre very soon after. The police said she had died of a heart attack.
RESPONSE
Disinformation from pro-Kremlin outlets using sensational lies, trying to portray Ukraine as an totalitarian country which oppresses its citizens. This the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and with the aim of diverting attention away from Russia's attack on Odesa.
The woman, identified as Olena Chesakova, is under house arrest. She did not die at the police station as the story suggests. On 8 October 2024, she tried to attach a Russian flag to the pedestal of a monument to Catherine the Great that once stood in Odesa. As passers-by saw her doing that, a heated exchange of words or and arguments followed and one of them snatched the flag from her hands. While standing on the pedestal, she also shouted some political and religious slogans such as ‘Akhmat is power’ (motto of the Chechen regiment Akhmat fighting alongside Russia against Ukraine), ‘Russia is strength’, ‘God is one’, and ‘Allahu akbar’.
Witnesses reported the incident to the police and she was taken in for questioning. Her actions were classified as justifying, recognising as lawful, or denying the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, as well as glorifying its participants. Chesakova had previously come to the attention of law enforcement for theft, petty hooliganism, and drinking alcohol in public. She and her mother had moved to Ukraine from the Russian city of Perm. Her mother, who is living in Czechia, said in an interview with Russian journalists that Chesakova always hated Ukrainians and the Ukrainian language.
This disinformation story was spread via the leading Russian state TV outlet channel Russia 1 engaging RT chief editor Margarita Simonyan, giving it a very large circulation also on subsequent online channels and social media clips.
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Ukraine promotes Nazism because it oppresses Russians and that There was a putsch in Ukraine and today the country is a totalitarian state. See also cases alleging that pro-Kremlin outlets are sources of truthful information: RT journalists tell the truth and A lie has never been told in Solovyov's studio.