{"id":1399054,"date":"2022-03-24T16:30:34","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T20:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1399054"},"modified":"2022-03-24T16:30:38","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T20:30:38","slug":"fact-check-was-canadian-sniper-wali-killed-in-mariupol-in-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-was-canadian-sniper-wali-killed-in-mariupol-in-march\/","title":{"rendered":"FACT CHECK: Was Canadian Sniper \u2018Wali\u2019 Killed In Mariupol In March?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffact-check-was-canadian-sniper-wali-killed-in-mariupol-in-march%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1399054&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>A post\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/permalink.php?story_fbid=1565335917175564&#038;id=100010975116491\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/permalink.php?story_fbid%3D1565335917175564%26id%3D100010975116491&#038;source=gmail&#038;ust=1648154499537000&#038;usg=AOvVaw1b0_vzC87Lp7JBU18NWnb1\">shared on Facebook<\/a> claims Canadian sniper \u201cWali\u201d was killed in Mariupol, Ukraine by Russian special forces.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Verdict: False<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>There is no evidence Wali died in Mariupol. He has given several interviews since his alleged death.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Fact Check:\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said over 16,000 foreign volunteers have signed up to join Ukraine\u2019s fight against Russia, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/flashpoints\/ukraine\/2022\/03\/14\/us-veterans-head-to-ukraine-to-fight-but-zelenskyys-legion-faces-hurdles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Military Times<\/a>. One such foreign fighter who traveled to Ukraine to join the fight is a Canadian sniper known as \u201cWali,\u201d who previously fought in Iraq, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/ukrainian-fighter-foreign-legion-medics-vets-1.6381650\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CBC<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>A March 15 Facebook post claims he was killed by Russian special forces in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2022\/03\/23\/1088113318\/what-mariupol-means-ukraine-russia-military-campaign\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">besieged<\/a> Ukrainian city of Mariupol just \u201c20 minutes after going into action.\u201d The post includes several images of Wali.<\/p>\n<p>There is no evidence that Wali died in Mariupol. He has given interviews to Canadian news outlets, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/8700279\/canadian-sniper-wali-alive-ukraine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Global News<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/wali-alive-despite-russian-disinformation-1.6393191\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CBC<\/a>, since his alleged death to discuss the rumor. Wali told CBC that he had been fighting on the front lines in Kyiv, not Mariupol.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was the last person to learn the news that I was dead,\u201d Wali told Global News in a March 22 interview. The rumors of his death have circulated on the Russian social media website VKontakte, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/wali-alive-despite-russian-disinformation-1.6393191\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/macdonaldlaurier.ca\/cm-expert\/marcus-kolga\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marcus Kolga<\/a>, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, told Check Your Fact in a phone interview that \u201cclearly Wali is not dead.\u201d <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/checkyourfact.com\/2022\/03\/15\/fact-check-ukraine-russia-destruction-footage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(RELATED: Does This Footage Show Destruction In Ukraine?)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cPosts appeared on VKontakte, a Russian social media platform, that suggested that Wali had been killed,\u201d said Kolga. \u201cIt was not long after that, a well-known Russian media outlet <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Pravda\">Pravda<\/a> -the Communist Party\u2019s primary voice since the Soviet era\u2013 produced a story suggesting that Wali had been killed 20 minutes after arriving in Ukraine by Russian special forces.\u201d Kolga noted it was a \u201ccompletely fabricated story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Canada has since barred its soldiers from joining the foreign legion in Ukraine, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/mar\/24\/canada-bars-soldiers-joining-ukraine-foreign-legion\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Guardian<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A post\u00a0shared on Facebook claims Canadian sniper \u201cWali\u201d was killed in Mariupol, Ukraine by Russian special forces.Verdict: False There is no evidence Wali died in Mariupol. He has given several<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1399054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1399054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1399054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1399054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1399054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}