The pro-Russian hoax about an alleged German Leopard 2 tank sporting a nazi graffiti

@ElentirENG ES 2·28·2023 · 17:43 0

Pro-Russian propaganda has been spreading all kinds of hoaxes for years to support the Kremlin's discourse. The last one has to do with tanks..

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In the last few hours, pro-Russian netizens are spreading images on Twitter in which they claim to see a Leopard 2 tank with a nazi graffiti that reads "14/88". Here we can see a Russian tweeter who has shared that video stating that it is of Leopard 2A5 tanks seen in Mannheim, Germany, being transferred to Ukraine:

Here we can see the image of the tank in question, shared yesterday by a pro-Russian tweeter:

The number 14 would refer to the motto of white supremacist leader David Lane: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children". 88 would be the numerical version of the initials HH of the Nazi cry "Heil Hitler". Some pro-Russian digital media have already published that information with the data I have just indicated.

Well then: that video is a montage. For starters, what you see in the image are not Leopard 2 tanks being transferred to Ukraine. Actually these are US Army M1A2 Abrams tanks during a deployment to Germany in March 2022. Here and here you can see the original video, in which there is no Nazi graffiti on any of the tanks. Both videos were published in March of last year:

According to the Belarusian opposition channel Nexta, the hoax was put into circulation by Russian propagandist Andrey Rudenko on his Telegram channel. It is curious that they went to the trouble to make a montage like this and did not even know the type of tank that appeared in those images...