© Reuters/Kham; Global Look Press/Lefort Zentaro; Reuters/Gleb Garanich
One wonders just how outrageous 'fake news' must be in order to get busted, but
Der Spiegel's ex-star reporter Claas Relotius got away with it all while writing for several outlets - maybe because it was about places like Ukraine.
Titled 'Bribing prohibited' Relotius' piece on the new Ukrainian police has all the elements of his trademark style: dramatic narrative, likeable heroes - and entirely made-up 'facts'.The '
report', published by the Swiss magazine
Reportagen in June 2016, tells a tale of two young people - Dimitri and Valeria - who became members of the
rebranded police force of post-Maidan Ukraine. Given the recent revelations over his fictional reporting, it's now unclear whether Relotius met the duo in reality, but the story makes for a very compelling read indeed.
It states that each day before going on patrol, Dimitri and Valeria have been coming to the center of Kiev to pray near the "altar" erected in memory of those who died during the 2014 Euromaidan unrest. The two were among the protesters back then, it reveals, describing how they recall burning buildings, the "smell of corpses," a man "with a child in his arms" shot dead beside an old well - and a ruined wall, where dozens were "slayed by snipers" and "rolled over by tanks."
Wait, what? Given that the majority of victims in Kiev - both protesters and law enforcement officers - were killed over two days of murky clashes in February 2014, the "smell" of dead bodies appears to be a little of an exaggeration. No "old wells" could immediately be found in central Kiev, and there's nothing to back up the story about a "man with a child" either.
Comment: This is the latest in a number of incidents reported at Earth's poles recently: