Thousands of Georgians were thrown into a panic after a local television network televised a fake report about a Russian invasion of the country.
The half-hour report shown on Saturday by the pro-government station Imedi TV was supposed to be a ‘simulation’ of a broadcast during a real invasion. While the broadcast revealed that it was only a mock-up at the end of the report, it failed to run on-screen disclaimers to warn viewers that the report they were seeing was not real.
Expectedly, viewers of the report were thrown into a panic.
CNN notes that Georgians are still sensitive about the possibility of a Russian invasion, since Russian troops and tanks did advance into the former Soviet Republic in 2008 when Georgian forces attacked pro-Russian separatists in South Ossetia.
The fake report used footage from the aforementioned incident, along with the recorded voices of Russian President Dimitri Medvedev and and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. It also reported Georgian deaths and injuries in South Ossetia.
The network aired a subsequent report approximately two hours later, apologizing for the panic that ensued.
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