December 1st 2020 | Is this Daily Mail Article fabricated?
Today's article (1st of December) claims that an entire Russian Family have tragically and fatally been lost to Covid. The attractive 36 year old, Svetlana Sorochinskaya, is claimed to have died after having given birth whilst on a ventilator. Other newspapers feature the same story, word for word - The Daily Star, The Mirror and The Sun.
Both of her parents are also have said to have died. The child survives and a man claiming to be the father is undergoing DNA testing to confirm parental status. The child is said to be heir "to valuable property in St Petersburg, including two apartments." A custody battle now ensues.
Svetlana's cousin, Larisa Kachkaeva, is cited as the source of this information and has offered to adopt the child.
Fact Finding
I do not speak Russian but have utilised Google Translate and other online resources to assess the validity of this story.
According to Google Translate, Svetlana Sorochinskaya in Russian is Светлана Сорочинская and Larisa Kachkaeva is Лариса Качкаева.
I have searched, via many different search engines for these names in English and Russian. An English search, only produces this article across the newspapers mentioned above. A search in Russian for Svetlana yields nothing, but for Larisa, I found an Instagram account, where the Daily Mail's photograph appears to be from.
I have searched several Russian news sites such as RT, The Moscow Times, St Petersburg News and the Fontaka News Outlet cited in the article. These names did not yield any results. Why would the alleged News source of the story have no trace of this 'newsworthy' story? Can you help?