Since the beginning of the war, the intox on an escape from Ukraine of president Zelensky and his wife multiply. Last example, the hijacking of a video published on March 13 on the Facebook account of the Ukrainian head of state. Volodymyr Zelensky visits wounded soldiers in a hospital there. He is accompanied by several men and a woman, blonde with short hair, in uniform.
On Facebook and Twitter, Internet users wrongly claim that this woman is Inna Derusova, who would be a nurse who died on February 26. Some have concluded that the video is not from March 13 and that Volodymyr Zelensky was no longer in Ukraine on that day when the video was posted.
FAKE OFF
The woman attending the visit alongside the Ukrainian president is Tetiana Ostashchenko, as Note France 24. His name – in Cyrillic – is partly visible in the 17th second of the video posted on the Ukrainian president’s Facebook page.
We distinguish his name in full in a higher resolution photo published by the Ukrainian Presidency. In addition, there are on his uniform, in the middle of his torso, symbols of the Ukrainian army, in particular two crossed clubs. These symbols are visible in a video from 2016, where the new uniforms of the Ukrainian army are presented.
Searching for his last name and the keyword “army” in Ukrainian, results show his full name and rank. Tetiana Ostashchenko was named August 24, 2021 Brigadier General of the Ukrainian Army Medical Service. It is the first woman appointed to this post.
Inna Derusova was also engaged in the army. She was posthumously awarded the medal on December 13 by the Ukrainian president, according to several local media. His old university announced on March 10 his passing and posted a photo of the caregiver.
Inna Derusova was a social and medical worker as well as a sergeant. The university adds that Inna Derusova died on February 26 “while performing her duties of rescuing soldiers under fire in Okhtyrka”, a town not far from the Russian border, located about a hundred kilometers from Kharkiv.