Now blinded teacher suffers online attack by pro-Putin trolls
CRUEL trolls have targeted a Ukrainian teacher blinded in a missile attack, falsely claiming she faked her injuries.
Photos of Olena Kurylo’s face were seen around the world after Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine in February.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week how we helped Olena get specialist treatment in Britain thanks to Mail Force donations. But the article unleashed an army of internet trolls, who parroted pro-Putin propaganda labelling Olena a liar.
Olena, who was angered and upset by the claims, said: ‘When people say that I am fake or an actress, I just wish they could
‘The online platforms must take action to remove the lies’
walk a mile in my shoes. I don’t care about the lies, and God forbid they ever have to live through everything that I and many people in Ukraine have experienced. I am a real person, and if people don’t believe me, that is their problem,’ she added.
Alexander Alimov, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN in Geneva, tweeted a conspiracy theory about
Olena in February. He wrote: ‘How to make a fake. Western MSMs [mainstream media] have been making rounds of this photo of a ‘wounded’ woman with suspiciously unnatural pomegranate blood make-up,’ sharing a widely used image of Olena from newspaper front pages.
He continued: ‘Now it turns out she is a staff member of the infamous Ukrainian 72nd Info Warfare & PsyOps Center. Ukraine [is] producing lies. Don’t buy!’ He posted a photo allegedly showing Olena uninjured two days after the attack, despite the woman bearing little resemblance to Olena.
‘Twitter and other online platforms must take action to remove the lies,’ Olena told The Mail on Sunday. ‘People should only know the truth. I accept that there will always be some people who don’t believe me, but that can rest on their conscience.’
After being approached by The Mail on Sunday last night, Twitter removed tweets from trolls calling Olena a ‘crisis actor’. But the original tweet from Alimov – who has 10,600 followers – remains.
Experts say disinformation is a key part of Putin’s strategy. ‘Russian propaganda outlets have claimed that victims of the war in Ukraine are “crisis actors”,’ said Nina Jankowicz, an author specialising in Russian disinformation.
‘This lie is then picked up by Western conspiracy theorists who are happy to amplify Kremlin propaganda,’ she said.
In May, the UK Government discovered a Kremlin troll factory that used ‘cyber soldiers’ to spread lies on social media and grow support for Putin.
At the time, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: ‘We cannot allow the Kremlin and its shady troll farms to invade our online spaces with their lies about Putin’s illegal war.’
Last night, a Twitter spokesman said: ‘Twitter’s top priority is keeping people safe, and our safety and integrity teams are identifying and disrupting attempts to amplify false and misleading information.’
According to Twitter, more than 75,000 accounts have been removed for violations of its manipulation and spam policy since the war in Ukraine began.