(This article contains reports about child rape which might be intense for some people.)

Listen to a reading of this article:

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The Ukrainian government is quickly learning that it can say anything, literally anything at all, about what's happening on the ground there and get it uncritically reported as an actual news story by the mainstream western press.

The latest story making the rounds is a completely unevidenced claim made by a Ukrainian government official that Russians are going around raping Ukrainian babies to death. Business Insider, The Daily Beast, The Daily Mail and Yahoo News have all run this story despite no actual evidence existing for it beyond the empty assertions of a government who would have every incentive to lie.

"A one-year-old boy died after being raped by two Russian soldiers, the Ukrainian Parliament's Commissioner for Human Rights said on Thursday," reads a report by Business Insider which was subsequently picked up by Yahoo News. "The accusation is one of the most horrific from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but is not unique."

At the end of the fourth paragraph we get to the disclaimer that every critical thinker should look for when reading such stories in the mainstream press:

"Insider could find no independent evidence for the claim."