No, this train was not bombed by Russians

Some may think it's "funny", others may claim it's "satire" or "sarcasm" (especially after their false claim has been exposed), but they don't realize how much they're causing unnecessary disruption and just adding fuel to the fire. Most recently, a tweet claimed that a Ukrainian train was bombed by Russians - a false claim that was gratefully seized upon by Russian accounts to provide supposed evidence that Ukraine was spreading fake propaganda.

The supposedly bombed Ukrainian train

A very typical example of " Hey guys, that was just sarcasm, why are you so upset?" is this tweet :

In a tweet, a user claims that the photo shows a Ukrainian passenger train that was bombed by Russians: “ The evil Russians bombed a Ukrainian passenger train .”

What makes this tweet even more complicated is that it was written by someone with a US flag in their name, which reinforces the conspiracy myth that it is a US proxy war against Russia.
As already written above: such false claims are gratefully received by the official Russian side:

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The photo is from Serbia 1999!

The photo of the destroyed train dates back to 1999. In 2019, for the twenty-year commemoration of the deceased, it was published again in articles, for example HERE .

On April 12, 1999, during the Kosovo War, NATO bombed the Morava Bridge in Serbia while the D 393 express train was passing the bridge. A NATO fighter jet fired two glide bombs at the bridge, but both hit the train instead.

In the attacks, 14 people died on the train and 16 others were injured. The bombing sparked a heated controversy at the time, as the US dismissed the incident as "collateral damage", but reporters from the Frankfurter Rundschau revealed that the footage of the glide bombs shown to the press was played at 4.7x speed, making it appear that way , as if the train was moving much faster.

“It was just sarcasm”

It was only three days later, after many Twitter users commented on the tweet, that the creator of the false claim tried to justify himself by saying that it was just “sarcasm”:

For those of you who aren't aware, I'm being sarcastic.

I am very well aware that this is a picture of when NATO bombed a Serbian passenger train.

— Paleoman MD 🇺🇸 (@paleomanmd) October 17, 2022

However, this is not believed because he has already spread such false claims several times:

No you got caught trying to lie. There is nothing sarcastic in your tweet just failed propaganda. We have seen you lot using pictures & videos from Syria, Iraq, Palestine & Libya claiming they are from Ukraine. You were caught lying red handed

— Sigananda (@jolikaqakeza) October 17, 2022

“No, you got caught trying to lie. There's nothing sarcastic about your tweet, it's just failed propaganda. We have seen you and others like you using images and videos from Syria, Iraq, Palestine and Libya and claiming they come from Ukraine. “You were caught red-handed lying.”

Conclusion

The photo is of a bombed train in Serbia in 1999, which was incorrectly and intentionally described as a Russian attack on a Ukrainian train by a Twitter user who has often spread false reports.

Further sources:

Factographer , dpa

Also interesting: In Germany, approval ratings for propagandistic statements and conspiracy theories about the Russian war of aggression have increased significantly in recent months.
– Germany is increasingly agreeing with pro-Russian conspiracy theories