TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyov admits showing viewers fake documents

Prominent Russian TV host Dmitry Kiselyov, known for his strong pro-Kremlin views, has admitted to presenting a fake document during his show News of the Week (Vesti Nedeli).

During the show, broadcast on the Rossiya 1 television channel on 24 April, Mr Kiselyov showed a Nazi ID card allegedly belonging to a Ukrainian officer in the Galician SS-Volunteer division, Roman Kolia. This division, also known as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, was a German Second World War military formation initially made up of volunteers from the region of Galicia with a Ukrainian ethnic background. In his report, Mr Kiselyov compared contemporary Ukrainian pro-European activists to members of the Nazi division.

While the following week he thanked his audience for flagging up the “inaccuracies” in the document, Mr Kiselyov lay blame for the mistake at the feet of Europe and Ukraine. He affirmed that the fake document had been found at “European flea markets” and that its high quality was due to the skills of “local masters of the genre” on Odessa’s “Little Arnautskaya Street”, a road in the Ukrainian city known for the trade of illegal goods.

“There are plenty of fakes now — from counterfeit paintings of brilliant artists to quotations falsely attributed to famous people. It is no wonder we fell for it,” he stated, highlighting that such artifacts, even if not historical, are useful reminders of history.

Source: Moscow Times and Meduza