Spreading fake news: Was a monument in the Blue Mountains to a SS Division blown up?

A few days before May 9, a story appeared in a minor Russian newspaper, about how a stone monument to the 20th SS Grenadier SS Division was blown up in the Blue Mountains. The story is 100% fiction.

The news published in a minor newspaper; tula.su used a photo of a former monument in Lihula depicting a man in a German military uniform.

The article states that according to the Estonian Parliament, this was an explosion organized by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the FSB and the Russian Ministry of Defense. It was timed to mark the 13th anniversary of the Bronze Soldier riots and the 75th anniversary of the „beginning of the Soviet occupation“.

In addition, it is described how the explosion was so strong that the windows of several local houses were shattered and flying fragments of the monument scraped the nearby War of Independence monument.

The fake news on some minor Russian newspaper should not have received much attention, but on May 9, the material began to appear in Estonian Russian-language Facebook groups and gathered a considerable number of shares and comments there. For example, it has been shared by the renamed group; Новости Эстонии, which formerly was called the People’s Law.

The news has also been widely distributed in Facebook groups not related to Estonia, collecting approximately 1,000 shares and 10,000 reactions. As of today, these postings have been deleted from several of the groups.

Photo: Screenshot from Facebook