“Putin destroys adrenochrome lab in Ukraine.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the hero in a fabricated blog post that gained traction on Facebook.

The Jan. 20 story came from Real Raw News, a website with a history of publishing false, fantastical stories. This time, it drew from a false QAnon cornerstone belief that powerful elites are killing children to harvest the chemical compound adrenochrome. According to the story, Putin struck back. 

“Putin destroys adrenochrome lab in Ukraine,” the story’s headline says. The post goes on to claim that Russian special forces “raided and destroyed an ‘Adrenochrome farm’” in Ukraine, “where sinister forces tortured abducted Russian children to harvest fluid from their adrenal glands.” 

The post cites an anonymous “Mar-a-Lago source” who claims that Putin told former U.S. President Donald Trump that the operation had led to the rescue of “50 young kids from the ghastly laboratory.” 

This post, which is being shared on Facebook, was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook.)

Real Raw News stories are authored by someone using a pseudonym and the site has a disclaimer saying it contains “humor, parody and satire,” though the author has defended his stories as truth.

We found no credible news reports or other sources to corroborate the claims in this post.

QAnon promotes a number of conspiracy theories that invoke pedophilia and a Democratic cabal. QAnon adherents were present during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. These ideas also infiltrated political discourse as recently as the 2022 midterm elections. 

We rate this claim Pants on Fire!