Is Ivan Milev, one of those who tragically died in a fire during the events in Odessa on May 2, 2014, а Bulgarian? No, that's not true: According to statements made by relatives of the tragically deceased man and published personal documents of Milev provided to media in Odessa by his relatives, it is clear that Ivan Ivanovich Milev is not a Bulgarian but a Ukrainian.
The claim appeared in a video on TikTok (archived here) published by @dy38ikzrqpsk on July 10, 2023.
The Russian text above the picture reads:
Ivan Milev
I suffocated
The Bulgarian caption text placed on top of the picture reads:
Anyone who supports Nazi Ukraine is not a Bulgarian but a Traitor!!
The Bulgarian text below the image is translated as:
Did you forget? Bulgarian Ivan Milev was burned alive in Odessa by Ukrainians in 2014.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Jul 13 05:49:01 2023 UTC)
Claims about Bulgarians killed by Ukrainians in the Odessa incident are circulating periodically in Bulgarian social media and appear mainly in the pro-Russian channels and rarely in online media publications. The most shared and recycled story is the one that claims that the deceased Ivan Milev was a Bulgarian or of Bulgarian origin, among the insinuations that the Ukrainians killed him because he was a Bulgarian. That does not correspond to the truth. These claims have been debunked many times by the Bulgarian media.
There are no confirmed Bulgarian citizens or those of Bulgarian origin among those who died during the Odessa events in 2014. No Bulgarian names or citizens appear in the published lists of the casualties, both in the initial and updated ones. Even in the lists of casualties posted by Russian sources, Ivan Milev appears as a Ukrainian citizen.
In an address to Ukrainian media, on speculations that appeared soon after Milev's death that he is a citizen of Moldova and of Gagauz origin, Milev's relatives reject such claims and state that he is a fourth-generation Ukrainian.
According to an article by the Bulgarian media 'Actualno' dated April 13, 2022, many of the statements in posts in the public space, in which Milev is associated with Bulgaria, Bulgarian events as well as Bulgarian Bessarabian origins, are copied from the biographies of some of his fellow citizens with a similar name and been connected in some way with Bulgaria. After finding violations and false information, Wikipedia marked Ivan Milev's page as a hoax and removed it as an encyclopedia article.
In another article dated May 3, 2014, reported by the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, Kristian Vigenin, confirmed that there are no Bulgarian citizens or those of Bulgarian origin among the people who died in the fire in Odessa in 2014. He said no Bulgarians were injured during the clashes between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian groups in the tragic incident.
Similar claims and insinuations that the Ukrainians burned Milev alive because of his Bulgarian origin were recycled and circulating in Bulgarian social media shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
