Source: Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD)
🔻
— Russian Embassy in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) March 17, 2022
There is an ongoing disinformation campaign in the 🇺🇸 media about the situation in 🇺🇦. Yet another example is a fake news circulating in the local press about the alleged involvement of the 🇷🇺 Armed Forces in the attack on the #Mariupol drama theater
🔻https://t.co/u9hys9QhEv pic.twitter.com/ewaINEutYF
FAKE
The Russian army struck the Mariupol Drama Theater by a heavy-duty bomb. There were about 1,000 civilians inside. The information about it is actively spread by Ukrainian telegram channels and Western media
The neo-Nazi Azov false flag in the Mariupol Drama Theater was known by local residents 3 days before the explosion.
— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) March 16, 2022
On social networks, they explained how “Azov have gathered women and children in the drama theater and are going to blow it up to blame the Russian military.”
FACT
The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has officially denied Kiev accusations in an air strike on the building of the Mariupol Drama Theater, where civilians could be held hostage.
On the afternoon of March 16, the Russian aviation did not perform any missions related to striking ground targets in Mariupol. According to the existing hard data, the militants of the nationalist Azov battalion committed a new bloody provocation by blasting the theater, which they had mined.
Earlier the Nazis of the Azov battalion could hold civilian’s hostage in the theater, using the upper floors as firing points. It was known from the refugees who got out of Mariupol.
Russian MoD Denies Accusations
The Russian Defence Ministry denies accusations by the Kiev regime of allegedly delivering an air strike on the Drama Theater building in Mariupol, where civilians might have been held hostage.
On March 16, the Russian aviation did not carry out any tasks related to strikes on ground targets in the city limits of Mariupol.
According to reliable reports, militants of the Azov nationalist battalion committed a new bloody provocation by blowing up a theater building they had previously mined.
It was previously known from refugees who escaped from Mariupol that Nazis of the Azov battalion could hold civilian’s hostage in the theater building, using the upper floors as firing points.
Given the potential danger to the lives of civilians and the provocation with Hospital No. 3 in Mariupol, which was already carried out by the nationalists on March 9, the theater building in the city center was never considered a target for attack.