Ukraine: photo of Chinese army heading to Russia is fake news, Beijing says
- Photo circulating on Twitter is a cropped version of a picture first published in 2021, China’s internet watchdog says
- There had been reports in the US that Russia had asked China for military support in its Ukraine invasion – which both governments deny
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country’s internet watchdog, said on Thursday that there were many fake news reports online aimed at discrediting China’s position on the war in Ukraine.
A photograph of a long line of fully loaded Chinese military vehicles travelling at night has circulated on Twitter, triggering speculation that China was providing assistance to Russia. But it was actually an edit of an old shot from May 2021, the CAC said.
A tweet had said a photo of 200 to 300 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) trucks was taken by a local driver on March 14 in the northeastern Heilongjiang province, near Suifenhe, a town on the border with Russia.
The original photo was an official publicity shot of a PLA regiment’s night transport exercise in the western region of Xinjiang last year, which was first published in PLA Daily on May 10, 2021, according to the CAC.
