“Since 2014 millions of tons of black earth are exported to SWEDEN for free!!! There are several articles on the internet that reveal this fact. All of Sweden was covered with black earth – where needed, where not needed!!! (..)
Exported in echelons of Mariupol surroundings and Poltava. 5 euros per ton!!!!!???? For the priceless black soil!”, they are outraged In a post shared on Facebook.
It also states that the Swedes allegedly deleted all information about the import of black earth, the creators of lies call the alleged acquisition of lands genocide.
Reanimated the old liar
As stated in 2014 Fact checkers at the Stopfake organizationat the beginning of July of that year, the Russian media and participants of social networks for the first time began to claim that Sweden would buy and export black soil from Ukraine.
This news appeared on pro-Russian websites fotostrana.ruand in the Vkontakte group “Odessa People’s Militia (Antimaidan)”.
July 26 portal “Rossijskaja gazeta” reported about the export of Ukrainian soil, citing the Swedish media as a source, specifically the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.
July 27 Russian radio station “VestiFM” also reported about it. However, both whistleblowers added that the information has not been officially confirmed or denied.
However, the Russian media did not explain that Dagens Nyheter 15 July in the article emphasized that rumors about the land being sold to Sweden were spread in the Russian media and social networks and that “there is no evidence that this is true”.
The newspaper also reported that Swedish officials did not confirm this information: the Swedish Embassy in Kyiv, the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish Ministry of Agriculture and the country’s customs service said they knew nothing about the purchase of soil from Ukraine.
The dictator’s favorite fairy tale
The lie about the alleged soil trade is repeated by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, and is constantly quoted by the country’s propaganda media.
“I don’t know who and when was involved in the sale of fertile soil from Ukraine, although there are such facts… This is their business. But I can’t imagine that the land is sold together with human remains, it just doesn’t fit in my head”, – during a meeting with members of the paramilitary patriotic youth organization “Junarmija” held last year V. Putin spoke.
According to the report of the state news agency TASS, one of the participants of “Junarmiia” – Lev Kravchenko – told a story during the meeting about how a German farmer allegedly found in his garden in 1944. medal of a Red Army soldier who died on the territory of Ukraine and handed it over to the Consulate General of Russia.
According to L. Kravchenko, the medal most likely ended up in Germany due to the export of Ukrainian black earth abroad.
He raised the question whether the remains of World War II soldiers are not being taken abroad along with the soil.
Shutterstock photo/Agriculture
“Let’s not spoil a good story with facts”
However, in reality, the event of the discovery and transfer of the medal looked a little different.
The publication “Rossijskaja gazeta” contacted Alexander Šot, who in 2021 handed over the find to the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Bonn.
It turned out that the medal was not found by a “German farmer” at all, but by an employee of a processing plant, and not on the ground – but in a pile of garbage.
“The medal was not actually found on the ground. My father brought it home from work. At the time (2019), he was working at a waste recycling company.
He had the medal for a while, then I took it and it was kept with me. One day I found it again and decided to try again to find the relatives of the person to whom it belonged”, in a comment to the newspaper A. Šotas told “Rossijskaja Gazeta”..
Photo of I.Čičiurkaitė/View of the mass grave (associative photo)
A technically impossible task
The very statement that Ukraine supposedly exports black soil abroad is completely absurd and unfounded.
There are no documented facts or independent expert studies on the export of Ukrainian black earth abroad.
Moreover, this statement is also absurd from an economic point of view. Director of the Land Use Institute of the National Academy of Sciences, Iosif Dorosh, as early as 2022. warnedthat during the last decades, the land of Ukraine has been severely degraded – its soils are in a pre-crisis state in terms of acidity and salinity.
Fotolia photo/Daigelai
He said that land cultivation in the country is on average 54 percent, and in some regions – even more, when the average indicator of European countries is 30-35 percent.
A high percentage of soil erosion leads to severe erosion, making previously fertile soils unsuitable for agriculture.
of the country Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources also in 2022 stressed that due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and climate change, the extent of soil erosion, pollution and drying is rapidly increasing: currently 58 percent. Ukrainian land is worn out, and 20 percent contaminated.
15min verdict: lie. There is no evidence that Ukraine exports or has ever exported its lands to other countries.
The publication was prepared in 15 minutes in partnership with Metawhich aims to stop the spread of misleading news on the social network. More about the program and its rules – here.
Source: www.15min.lt
