First, let it be said that there are few things worse than war or low-cost airlines with names like Wizz. Recently, war and Wizz had a brief intersection, and they did so in a way that not only fed the public’s endless appetite for airline horror stories but underscored the perils of press bias at a time when fact-checking, particularly online, often takes a backseat to headlines sometimes deemed too tantalizing to resist. 

The odd kerfuffle unfolded on the tarmac at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, where a Wizz Air plane was getting ready to take off for a flight to Warsaw. One of the passengers on board was a man who experienced difficulty in taking his seat due to his leg prosthesis and crutches. After standing in one corner of the aircraft for more than an hour, and at one point falling, he was removed from the plane for what the airline called “safety reasons.”

A fellow passenger posted a portion of the ruckus on TikTok, and identified the frustrated man as a veteran of the war in Ukraine. Newspapers and websites ran with it: “Wizz Air Faces Criticism After Refusing To Fly Ukrainian War Veteran,” a headline on the travel site Simple Flying read.  Accoring to The Kyiv Independent, “Wizz Air apologizes for removing Ukrainian veteran from flight.” Only it didn’t. 

In a statement, Wizz Air said, “We apologize for the upset caused regarding a passenger on our Tel Aviv flight to Warsaw recently. Safety is our number one priority.” The airline said the man’s prosthesis did not fit into his seat and cited the man’s subsequent confusion as a safety risk to other passengers. He also refused to leave the plane when flight attendants initially requested for him to do so. 

Problem is, the man was not a veteran. A spokesman for Ukraine’s ministry of foreign affairs, Oleg Nikolenko, initially misidentified him as such, but then corrected himself in a Facebook post. Mr. Nikolenko confirmed that the passenger was a Ukrainian citizen but “has never served in the ranks of the armed forces and is not a veteran.”

According to Ukrainian media, the man lost his leg in a road accident several years before the war in Ukraine began and had been receiving medical treatment for his disability in Israel. That is not something the TikTok user who posted the video bothered to investigate.

Nevertheless, the vitriol unleashed against the airline by social media users, particularly in Ukraine, was swift, with the hashtag “boycottwizzair” rapidly gaining steam. 

According to Hungarian Conservative, “openly hostile posts connected [WizzAir’s] decision to Hungary’s stance on the war, creating a spurious link between the WizzAir crew’s spontaneous decision on the ground in Israel with Hungarian foreign policy — just because the company happens to be Hungarian.”

Like Hungary, Israel has often treaded a contrarian line with respect to the war in Ukraine. Israel’s foreign ministry announced last month it had summoned the Ukrainian ambassador, Yevgen Korniychuk, for a clarification “in the wake of his repeated statements against Israeli policy.” The meeting was held earlier this month.

Yet the antagonistic notes in Kyiv’s relations with both Jerusalem and Budapest persist. In that respect a Hungarian airline on a flight from Israel could be seen as ideal social media fodder for a stinging rebuke of two capitals — salient facts in the matter were just cast aside.

Mr. Nikolenko still insists that the rights of a Ukrainian citizen were violated. Wizz Air still insists that “if there is any indication that a passenger has a medical risk that might put them at risk while flying, we are obligated to deny boarding.”

The internet, apparently, still trades in its toxic share of unconfirmed news, because generally reliable websites like Business Insider and the Jerusalem Post are posting uncorrected articles that include phrases like “Ukrainian soldier” and “Ukrainian war veteran” with no mention of the Ukrainian foreign ministry’s own rectification. 

For Ukraine’s many cheerleaders in this war, a fresh burst of grassroots-level damage was done and that, to do a quick review of some of the social posts, was good. 

Is it though? Nearly a year and a half after the Russian invasion, Ukraine ought to realize it is not so much the little victories that count, or what are perceived as such,  but the big ones.