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I stumbled upon this niche tweet claiming that the Ukrainian Ombudsman for Human Rights Lyudmyla Denisova made up rape allegations against the Russian Army and was added to the list of enemies of Ukraine.

Liudmila Denisova, the brain behind fakes on mass rapes of Ukrainian women, children, parrots and small household appliances by Russian soldiers, has been fired & added to a list of people who are enemies of the Ukrainian state.

Wikipedia confirms the false rape accusations but my question is about that last part: Did Ms Denisova get added to the list of enemies of Ukraine?

csstudent1418
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    "mass rapes of Ukrainian women, children" I understand. The rest of it has me scratching my head. Rape a parrot? That's got to be one desperate fella with some physical problems. Rape a small household appliance? Vacuum cleaner, maybe. Sewing machine, really doubtful. Did something get lost in translation from Russian or Ukrainian? – JRE Jun 10 '22 at 09:05
  • How can we verify this? There are almost 8 billion people on this planet, it is entirely plausible that somewhere, someone, has created some list of enemies of Ukraine, and may or may not have put this person on it. The only way to verify that is to ask every single currently living human being. – Jörg W Mittag Jun 10 '22 at 11:31
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    Is "niche tweet" the latest euphemism for "crazy outburst by person with no followers"? – DJClayworth Jun 10 '22 at 15:49
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    @DJClayworth Frankly, I don't care about semantics, I'm only interested in its statements' truth or lack thereof. And it _is_ quite harrowing that what would seem like merely another _crazy outburst by a person with no followers_ to most people these days more often than not tends to have at least some shocking truth to it, considering we are talking about a "Human Rights Ambassador here". – csstudent1418 Jun 10 '22 at 16:32
  • @csstudent1418 Was Denisova an ambassador or ombudsman fo rhuman rights? Those are two highly different positions. – M. A. Golding Jun 11 '22 at 18:19
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    @M.A.Golding [Denisova](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmyla_Denisova) was the parliamentary Ombudsman/Commissioner for Human Rights until [her dismissal in May](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/05/31/7349678/) – Henry Jun 12 '22 at 23:37

2 Answers2

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According to several Telegram channels, on June 3rd Denisova was added to the database of the site of Myrotvorets Center - an Ukraine-based NGO. The site publishes personal information of people who are considered by authors of the website to be "enemies of Ukraine", or, as the website itself states, "whose actions have signs of crimes against the national security of Ukraine, peace, human security, and the international law". The site has reached a certain degree of notoriety as "the list of enemies of Ukraine", and multiple organisations expressed concern about the Center's activities. The screenshot in the twitter post linked in the question does seem to match the site's look.

Denisova's profile is currently unavailable on the site, original messages in the channels reporting this event are, for the most part, deleted (which prevents finding the point of origin for the statement), but some reposts did include screenshots; and on June 4 other sources already reported not being able to access that profile.

The answer to your question is thus: even if she was added to said list (images can be altered, after all), it was for an extremely short time and then the entry was deleted, which implies that the entry was in error.

Danila Smirnov
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  • How is "According to several Telegram channels" anymore upvote-worthy than tweet by Russian journalist (albeit with a dozen retweets or likes)... I have no idea. – Fizz Jun 13 '22 at 23:45
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The existing answer from @danila-smirnov covers the topic about whether the Myrotvorets' Center matches the description of "list of enemies of Ukraine". I will not reiterate on that, just refer the About Us page that provides with more information about the organization, its goals, and activities.

Let me instead narrow the question down to:

Did Liudmila Denisova, the Ukrainian Ambassador for Human Rights get added to the Myrotvorets' ("Peacekeeper") Center's Chystylysche ("Purgatory") list?

The answer is No.

  1. The Peacekeeper Center has debunked the Russian claims about this incident: original article (Ukrainian), Google Translate. Quote as auto-translated:

    But the Nazis do not forget about us. Almost every day they write something about us.

    Yesterday, for example, they took a screenshot of a recording of their Fuhrer from the Kremlin, framed Denisova's photo with Photoshop and began to share it. Many of those we would not have thought of pecked at this delusion. […]

    1. The publication of information about the brutal rape of children and minors by the Russian fascists, which was repeatedly publicly reported by L. Denisova, is very infuriating for the Kremlin. That is why they decided to sow distrust in such information and compromise it in any way.

  2. Database search on the Purgatory list, indeed, shows no profile for Mrs. Denisova.

  3. The Twitter profile linked in the original question belongs to Irina Molotova who describes herself "a journalist on the TV channel RT, Russia." ("журналист телеканала RT. Россия.")

    The RT channel is known for spreading fakes and propaganda which became the major reason for the ban in many countries. For instance:

    In order to justify and support its military aggression of Ukraine, the Russian Federation has engaged in continuous and concerted disinformation and information manipulation actions targeted at the EU and neighbouring civil society members, gravely distorting and manipulating facts. — European Council

    She also quotes a Rashist slogan "Крым наш." ("Crimea is ours") in her Twitter profile.

    Hence, the source is potentially biased.

Oddthinking
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Be Brave Be Like Ukraine
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    I'm sorry but if you want to talk about biased sources then I'm not sure you should be quoting The Peacekeeper Center either. Wikipedia [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmyla_Denisova] tells me that she **herself admitted to exaggerating (which goes hand in hand with making stuff up) those stories** so that is what I believe. – csstudent1418 Jun 12 '22 at 08:39
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    @csstudent1418, not sure if I understood your comment correctly. The original question refers a certain Twitter post. The Twitter post contains a screenshot that pretends to look like a Peacekeeper Center page. **So the entire clam is about the Peacekeeper Center.** Who should I be quoting instead? If you want to know whether Mrs. Denisova's certain claim was true, that would be a good start for a separate question. – Be Brave Be Like Ukraine Jun 12 '22 at 11:13
  • My comment puts into question the contents of your 2nd quote. Since it reinforces the false rape-allegations I cannot consider it a trustworthy source. – csstudent1418 Jun 12 '22 at 11:55
  • @csstudent1418, ah, I see your point now. The Peacekeeper Center is debunking the claim of adding Mrs. Denisova to its Purgatory list. This is a 1st-person, direct answer to the original question. There's simply no better source to answer the original question than the 1st-person response. […] – Be Brave Be Like Ukraine Jun 12 '22 at 12:07
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    […] Whether or not Mrs. Denisova exaggerated the "very harsh vocabulary" when describing Russian gang/children rapes, or why would certain news outlets title this like "Denisova exaggerated Russian rape claims", making its readers think that there were no Russian gang rapes at all, — is another question that should be addressed to someone else, not to the Peacekeeper Center. – Be Brave Be Like Ukraine Jun 12 '22 at 12:08
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    @bytebuster A 1st-person denial of a claim is certainly an interesting find, but I don't think it can *automatically* be considered definitive. If we never valued second-person accounts above first-person ones, it would only be necessary to plead Not Guilty to be cleared of a crime. The evidence about motives for *fabricating* the claim are more telling - to continue my analogy, that's like questioning the reliability of a witness for the prosecution. – IMSoP Jun 12 '22 at 13:36
  • @IMSoP, that is true. But the original question was *not* about the guilty/not guilty dilemma. It specifically asked, and I quote: "but my question is about that last part: Did Ms Denisova get added to the list of enemies of Ukraine?" As I said in another comment, if you are seeking for the confirmation/denial of the true/fabricated evidence on gang rape/infant rape by the Russians, you may want to ask another question. – Be Brave Be Like Ukraine Jun 12 '22 at 14:01
  • @bytebuster I didn't say anything about the rape claims either. I said that the Peacekeeper Centre denying that they added her to the list is not necessarily definitive, because they might have a motive to lie about it. On the other hand, finding a motive for others to lie about *seeing* her on the list tells us more. My mention of pleading not guilty was just an analogy, not a direct reference to the situation. – IMSoP Jun 13 '22 at 09:24
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    @IMSoP Re: *"they might have a motive to lie about it"* — In my understanding, **the whole purpose of the Purgatory list is exposure.** So that others could see it and e.g. put to shame, call for a resignation, arrest, etc. There is literally no sense in writing a name on a secret piece of paper deeply hidden in your pocket that nobody could see, and then lying you did not write anything at all. The "About Us" link I put into the answer may give more information about what the Peacekeeper Center is about and what goals they set. – Be Brave Be Like Ukraine Jun 13 '22 at 10:55
  • @bytebuster The claim is apparently that they put the name on the list then took it off again. The motive for denying that might be shame at making such a mistake, just as the motive for their opponents claiming it is to discredit them. Just to be clear, I'm not saying I think they *are* lying; I'm just saying that "they deny it" is weak evidence *on its own*. – IMSoP Jun 13 '22 at 11:01
  • @IMSoP this comments discussion is changing topic too often. The original question was about (1) *"Did Ms Denisova get added to the list […]?"*, and my post has directly answered it. Then it was about the (2) *"motives for fabricating the claim"* on Russian war crimes. Then it was changed to a potentially poor quality of the 1st-person evidence (3) *"they might have a motive to lie about it"*. Now that it has been debunked, the topic was changed again to (4) *"they put the name on the list then took it off again"*. It would be nice if we could stick to a single claim per question. – Be Brave Be Like Ukraine Jun 13 '22 at 11:49
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    @bytebuster Sorry, I think you've misunderstood my very first comment. I was never talking about *any* of the things you attribute to me. My comment was *specifically* responding to your earlier comment where you said "There's simply no better source to answer the original question than the 1st-person response." I was simply pointing out that, *as a general rule*, that is not a logical position, even if *in this particular case*, the 1st-person response is indeed trustable. Nothing has been "debunked", and no topic has been changed; I have simply been trying to clarify that single observation. – IMSoP Jun 13 '22 at 11:56
  • @IMSoP thanks, I see your point now. I don't, however, see reason why we should generalize to *as a general rule* for my comment referred only this particular case. "There's simply no better source **to answer the original question** than the 1st-person response," and "the original question" was only about this particular situation, not about the tactics of legal defense ([law.se]) or philosophic dispute ([philosophy.se]) in general. – Be Brave Be Like Ukraine Jun 13 '22 at 13:46