DISINFO: Panic in Ukraine due to coronavirus, metro banned in Lviv
SUMMARY
In Ukraine, there is panic due to coronavirus. The country’s government imposed quarantine and banned Ukraine’s metros from working, announced President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The metro was closed, including in Lviv (western Ukraine).
RESPONSE
Indeed, temporary quarantine has been introduced in Ukraine, just like in many other countries, due to the rapid spread of coronavirus worldwide. However, Lviv does not have, and never has had, a metro. Metro systems in Ukraine can be found only in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Dnipro. The "Lviv Metro" is a well-known Internet meme in Ukraine that makes fun of Russian chauvinism and Ukrainophobia. According to a legend, it was built "by Bandera during the Nazi occupation of the city during WWII using Russian slave labour, and its lines are in the shape of a trident." Russian media periodically publish fake news about the Lviv metro. For example, in the summer of 2018, they reported that "a monster unknown to science was caught in the Lviv metro." Read a similar case that Stepan Bandera was an agent for Hitler.