Twitter removes Russian embassy’s post calling Ukraine’s maternity bombing staged
Tweets from the Russian embassy in London have been removed by the social media giant after it suggested that images from Ukraine’s Mariupol maternity hospital bombing yesterday were staged.
It accused a beauty blogger of “playing roles of pregnant women”, accusing her of wearing “some very realistic make-up” in an attempt to spread misinformation about the Russian invasion.
The images had red writing edited over it, branding it ‘FAKE’, whilst the post read: “The maternity house was long non-operational. Instead, it was used by Ukrainian forces and radicals, namely the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. Moreover, Russia warned UN Security Council about this 3 days ago”.
Twitter removed later removed the tweet, stating that it had violated its social media policy.
According to reports from the Guardian, a spokesperson for Boris Johnson said: “It is clear that this is further disinformation. You have seen the pictures of the people who were wounded during that attack, and you have seen what the prime minister said in his tweet yesterday.”
Meanwhile, the country’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov claimed echoed that Ukrainian forces had taken over the hospital before the attack, and no patients were actually present at the time of the air strikes yesterday.
“With regards to the maternity hospital, it is not the first time we have seen pathetic outcries concerning the so-called atrocities perpetrated by the Russian military,” a BBC translator quoted him as saying.
Culture secretary Nadine Dorries has called the embassy’s claims “fake news” and said the comments had been reported by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.