On September 3, Facebook user Nana Ugulava shared a video of a protest rally recorded in Odesa, Ukraine. The video has Russian inscriptions saying that the protesters are demanding “Ukraine without Zelenskyy.” In addition, the author of the post added a caption to the video – “Odesa…people are tired of war…better late than to the last Ukrainian.”
The video is being circulated with a false caption. In fact, the people gathered did not demand Zelenskyy’s resignation. The rally was held against the allocation of money from the budget for the renovation of the Kyiv District Court. The protesters demanded the cancellation of the announced tender and the transfer of the money to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
What are the people in Odesa protesting?
The video shared by the Facebook user with a false caption and the images of the rallies spread by the local media show the building of the Odesa City Hall, where the participants of the rally gathered.
The participants of the rally in Odesa are protesting against the spending of money from the budget on non-priority issues during the war. The rally was held in front of the city hall several times after August 28. As one of the organizers, Kateryna Nozhevnikova, head of the Monsters Corporation charity foundation, says, they are not protesting against the government, but with the aim of calling on the government to stop “meaningless tenders”, because the fate of the country depends on all citizens.
During an extraordinary session on August 25, City Council deputies agreed to allocate money for the renovation of the Kyiv District Court. Despite the protest of some deputies, the majority voted in favor of the budget amendment. After the vote, the “Servant of the People” and “European Solidarity” factions called on the Mayor of Odesa not to finance the renovation and to use the money for the Ukrainian Armed Forces instead; however, the Head of the Legal Department of the Mayor’s Office said that it was not within the Mayor’s authority to cancel the tender.
According to the tender conditions, the contractor company should build three additional floors of the Kyiv District Court. The City Council said in its statement that the project was started before the war and its value is 106 million hryvnias, and at this stage 10 million hryvnias have been allocated from the budget.
Citizens demanding the cancellation of the tender came to the rallies with banners – “Armed forces first, then everything else”, “My taxes to the armed forces”, “Armed forces first”, etc. In the video, the protesters chant – “It’s a shame!”
It should be noted that the video was taken from a Tik-Tok account, which spreads material against the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
About the source
Facebook user Nana Ugulava has spread disinformation several times in the past. The false information published by the user, which has been verified by the Myth Detector in the past, is mainly related to Ukraine and the ongoing war in the country.
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