Ukrainian Military Dolphin Hoax

This is the forum dedicated to all 'minor' local psyops - phony murders, kidnappings and whatnot. It has now become evident that the news media constantly feeds the public with entirely fake stories - in order to keep us in eternal fear of our next-door neighbours and fellow citizens.
guivre
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Ukrainian Military Dolphin Hoax

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Original Source Article
SEVASTOPOL, March 12 (RIA Novosti) - Three of the Ukrainian navy's “killer” dolphins that swam away from their handlers during training exercises probably left to look for mates, an expert said on Tuesday.
Ukrainian media reported earlier this month that only two of five military-trained dolphins returned to their base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol after a recent exercise.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry denied the reports, while refusing to confirm the navy makes use of dolphins, despite the frequent appearance in Ukrainian media of photographs of dolphins with military equipment strapped to them.
“Control over dolphins was quite common in the 1980's,” said Yury Plyachenko, a former Soviet naval anti-sabotage officer. “If a male dolphin saw a female dolphin during the mating season, then he would immediately set off after her. But they came back in a week or so.”
Dolphins were trained at Sevastopol for the Soviet Navy as far back as 1973. They were trained to find military equipment such as mines on the seabed, as well as attacking divers and even carrying explosives on their heads to plant on enemy ships.
After the breakup of the USSR and the division of the Black Sea Fleet into Ukrainian and Russian fleets, the dolphin training section and its specialists were handed over to the Ukrainian navy. They were then used for civilian tasks such as working with disabled children, in order to keep the unit intact.
A military source in Sevastopol told RIA Novosti last year that the Ukrainian navy had restarted training dolphins to attack enemy combat swimmers and detect mines. The killer-dolphins would be trained to attack enemy combat swimmers using special knives or pistols fixed to their heads, the source said
Hundreds of media outlets appear to have picked up and run the story.

Today The Atlantic covers the hoax, apparently they covered the story yesterday:

Ukrainian Military Dolphins Not Actually on the Loose
Update! Sad news, friends. It turns out that one piece of the Ukrainian dolphin story is, in fact, a hoax. No dolphins from the Ukrainian army's complement have actually escaped, according to this newspaper report. The hoax began with this faked report from the museum director, which led to a story by RIA Novosti. The strangest thing about this is how plausible the whole thing actually is. Gregg studies dolphins for a living and did not seem skeptical. That's because the US and Ukrainian military do indeed have dolphins, which they've been, according to previous reports, training for combat. A reader wrote in to tell me that when he was a young sailor in Turkey, this beluga whale was rumored to have escaped from a military installation in Crimea. That is to say, the oddest part of this story -- that dolphins have regularly been used in the military -- is unchanged. But the specifics turn out to be a hoax. Our apologies for the mistake. In recompense, allow me to give you this video about the history of militarized dolphins.
It makes me feel as if the most absurd fake news is being floated out there (no pun intended) to see how much people can stomach.