Ukraine’s embassy called on Israel to close Russian TV stations over propaganda that claimed Kyiv is arming Hamas with NATO weapons, informs Jpost.
Ukraine’s embassy in Tel Aviv called on Israel to ban Russian TV stations nationwide on Sunday, following statements broadcast by these stations claiming Kyiv was arming Hamas.
«This is news that the Russian government spreads, with the intention of accusing Ukraine of being a part of the Russians’ struggle against Israeli people,» the embassy said in a statement shared on Facebook.
Adding that Ukraine fully supports Israel in its ongoing war against Hamas, the embassy said that «there is no situation in which weapons from Ukraine will reach Hamas,» blasting the claims to the contrary as being Russian propaganda.
The embassy further cited a recent decision to stop the activity of the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera in the country due to its coverage of Israel’s current war in the Gaza Strip.
Has Ukraine been supporting Hamas with weapons?
The claim that Ukraine has been arming Hamas terrorists was spread by accounts on social media and by Russian officials.
Most notable among them is Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and close ally of President Vladimir Putin.
In a statement on his official Telegram account, Medvedev claimed that the weapons sent by NATO members to Ukraine are being used in Israel.
These claims have also been circulating from other notable public figures, including US Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia, 14th District), who on X (formerly Twitter), claimed that Ukraine and Afghanistan could be supplying US weapons to Hamas to use against Israel.
«Did they come from Afghanistan? Did they come from Ukraine?» Taylor Greene wrote on X just a day after Hamas’s October 7 invasion of Israel. «Highly likely the answer is both.»
Further purported evidence of this link is a supposed BBC clip spread on social media claiming that investigative journalism and Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) group Bellingcat verified that Ukraine was sending weapons to Hamas.
However, this was debunked by Bellingcat itself, which took to social media saying that the video was a forgery and that all the claims were false.
«It’s unclear if this is a Russian government disinformation campaign or a grassroots effort, but it’s 100% fake,» said Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins.
BBC fact-checking unit reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh also stressed that the video is a hoax and is not based on any BBC or Bellingcat reporting.
Meanwhile, Russia has also been hosting Hamas members in an official capacity, having welcomed a delegation of the Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist group in Moscow on October 26, a visit that was confirmed both by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova and by Hamas itself.
Ukraine has also accused Russia of having had a role in Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack on Israel. In statements, Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) head Kyrylo Budanov accused Moscow of helping to train the group in tactics, citing their drone strikes on armored vehicles as being a sign of Russian training. Budanov also claimed that a Russian reconnaissance satellite was moved to orbit over Israel just a week before Hamas attacked, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Just days after the war began, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) also accused Russia of sending Western weapons captured in Ukraine to Hamas as part of a plot to discredit Kyiv.