On August 23, 2023, a Georgian-language Facebook page published a screenshot of the Facebook post allegedly published by Nika Gvaramia, the founder of “Mtavari Channel.” The post alleges that Gvaramia published a photo of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian private military company “Wagner,” with the caption “R.I.P my friend! bye bye Zhenia”
The screenshot disseminated on Facebook is fabricated. A similar post cannot be found on Gvaramia’s Facebook page. The authenticity of the post was denied by Nika Gvaramia in a comment to “Myth Detector.”
Nika Gvaramia indeed published a post on his Facebook page about Prigozhin’s death, although he did not express sorrow.
Other posts published by Gvaramia in the last 24 hours are related to the celebration of the Ukrainian flag day in Kyiv. Nika Gvaramia himself confirmed in the comment to “Myth Detector” that he did not publish a post expressing his sorrow regarding Prigozhin’s death.
Notably, in August, another fabricated statement was disseminated in the name of Nika Gvaramia, which concerned the territories of Georgia occupied by Russia:
- Did Gvaramia Say that Georgia Should Give up on the Occupied Territories in Exchange for NATO and EU Membership? (in Georgian)
According to reports, the head of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a plane crash on August 23. Prigozhin’s plane was flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg. There were seven passengers and three crew members on board. Among them was the high-ranking commander of Wagner’s group, Dmitry Utkin. All ten people on board died. According to a social media account linked to Wagner’s group, the group blamed Russian air defenses for the downing of the plane.
Wagner’s group has been actively fighting in Ukraine, but in recent months, the group has had a confrontation with Russian military leaders. 2 months ago, on June 23-24, Prigozhin rebelled and moved his forces from Ukraine to Russia, took the city of Rostov-on-Don and threatened to reach Moscow. The confrontation ended with an agreement: Prigozhin agreed to move to Belarus, and members of the Wagner group were given the opportunity to join the Russian army or relocate to Belarus.
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