Ukraine blogger video fuels false info on Mariupol bombing

A Ukrainian beauty blogger whom Russian officials accused of being a crisis actor when she was interviewed and photographed by The Associated Press in a bombed out Mariupol maternity hospital has emerged in new videos that are fueling fresh misinformation about the attack. A Russian government-linked Twitter account on Friday shared an interview with Marianna Vishegirskaya, in which the new mother says the hospital was not hit by an airstrike last month and that she told AP journalists she did not want to be filmed — assertions that are directly contradicted by AP reporting. But eyewitness accounts and video from AP journalists in Mariupol lays out evidence of an airstrike, including the sound of an airplane before the blast, a crater outside the hospital that went at least two stories deep and interviews with a police officer and a soldier at the scene who both referred to the attack as an “airstrike.” At the time of the strike, AP reporters were in another part of Mariupol. “By that time you would hear an airplane almost every 10, 15 minutes, and there would be airstrikes all around the city,” AP video journalist Mstyslav Chernov explained in an interview Saturday. We don’t know,” she told AP on camera, adding: “There are many rumors, but in fact we can’t say anything.” Vishegirskaya’s newly released comments actually contradict talking points that Russia promoted after the bombing.