A Ukrainian lawmaker has posted a photo of a sad-looking, dirt-covered boy, claiming that he is an eight-year-old named Mark, who “just survived” a Russian artillery strike. However, the claim didn’t hold water, since the same image had been used on a book cover in 2013, as people swiftly pointed out.
The false claim came from Lesia Vasilenko, a Ukrainian MP from the relatively small Golos (Voice) Party, who has a background in law and human rights campaigning. She shared the photo and the purported story of “Marc, 8 yo” with her 330,000 followers on her English-language Twitter feed on Tuesday.
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The photo is nowhere close to being new and does not appear to have any relation to Ukraine. The 2013 Spanish-language edition of the book “The Misremembered Man” by Irish novelist Christina McKenna featured the very same picture on the cover, skeptics pointed out.
