Here is a good opportunity for us to see through some propaganda. The media loves the stories about American volunteers who go to fight in Ukraine. They don’t necessarily have to be true.
Business Insider recently exposed a man named James Vasquez, a 48 year-old contractor from Vermont, as a fake social media war hero. We covered his story in March when the New York Times accused him of lying. Now Business Insider says that the fact that he is a faker is well known in Ukraine. Other foreign fighters say that he enters “areas where battles had taken place, take[s] videos with destroyed equipment, and claim[s] battlefield achievements as his own.”
He also lied about his veteran experience claiming he was involved in Operation Desert Storm.
His social media accounts have been de-activated but not before he had the opportunity to rile up over 400,000 people with his war hero rhetoric.
Just because he perpetuated fake foreign fighting doesn’t mean others do but it is proof positive that the media is willing to elevate some stories without validation for one agenda over another.
