A video allegedly recorded in Berlin is being circulated on social networks. On the advertising screen on the wall of the building, a video is broadcast with a call not to provide tanks to Ukraine. The ads used images of 1943 and 2022 and the slogan “Maybe, never again?”. Social media users add that this is allegedly how the Germans are trying to remind their government about the events of the world war. It's fake.

The video was created with software. The author and date of the video is unknown. The fact-checkers of the Correctiv project have established that the screen is indeed located in Berlin. Its owners denied broadcasting such a video not only on a specific screen, but also on any other of their property.

Thus, Russian propaganda continues to oppose the supply of German tanks to Ukraine. Previously, fakes were spread about similar advertising at Stuttgart Airport. Russian propaganda also spread messages that Western tanks would not help Ukraine, the Russians would burn them down.

Reports are circulating on the net that the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine allegedly decided to create telegram channels with “official information” about the activity of enemy aircraft and the movement of drones.

The Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine denied this information: “The Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine does not have any telegram channels that reflect the air situation, the movement of enemy air targets, the work of air defense, etc”. The department also urged administrators running fake pages on social networks not to use official Air Force symbols or photos of officials to promote their information platforms.

Official information platforms of the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kpszsu

Telegram: https://t.me/kpszsu

Instagram: instagram.com/air.force.ua.official

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KpsZSU

YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfg-2zTad5ZVU1fQEtT6DSA

War bonds are securities, so they cannot be used for payroll type calculations. As the fact-checkers of the “Without Lies” project explain, the nominal value of one bond is UAH 1000 / USD 1000 / EUR 1000. Bonds (certificates) with a face value of two million hryvnias do not exist.

On the fake bond it is indicated that this is a certificate for the amount of compensation in the institutions of Oshchadbank and Ukrainian state commercial insurance organization (Ukrderzhstrakh). This certificate has a different wording. Moreover, Ukrderzhstrakh was liquidated back in 1993. The fake certificate was allegedly signed by Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko. However, the actual signature belongs to one of his predecessors - Oleksandr Shlapak (February-December, 2014). It was during the work of Shlapak that war bonds began to be issued.

Thus, propagandists are trying to discredit the Ukrainian army and the leadership of the state. Earlier, propagandists claimed that Ukraine canceled the payment of 15 million hryvnias to the families of the dead servicemen.

Russian propaganda spreads the message to a foreign audience that before the start of a full-scale invasion, there were no Russian military personnel on the territory of Ukraine. Like, before the start of the special operation, Russia did not offer military assistance to Donbas. But Moscow noticed the militarization of Ukraine and the mood for a forceful resolution of the conflict. EU vs Disinfo analysts drew attention to the spread of the message.

This narrative is not new. It has been periodically distributed since 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and part of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. A new round of its distribution should once again present Russia as a victim of the “collective West” and emphasize to the Russian audience that “the motherland is in danger - it must be defended”. Russia systematically uses the tactics of substitution of concepts to distort reality and advance its own interests.

In the Georgian segment of social networks, a photo of a pink tank is being circulated. The inscription for this photo is in Russian. Like, European feminists raised money and bought a tank for Ukraine. It was painted pink because green was too touchy. Also, the barrel of the tank was allegedly cut off because it looked sexist. It is not true.

The photo of the pink tank was taken at Manchester Pride in 2007 and has nothing to do with Ukraine. Myth Detector fact-checkers could not find in open sources information about the purchase of a pink tank by European feminists for Ukraine.

By spreading such fakes, Russian propaganda serves several purposes: ridicules and devalues volunteer assistance and Western arms supplies to Ukraine, and also tries to discredit the LGBTQ+ community.

Detector Media talked about Russian disinformation about LGBT people.

All explosions on its territory, Russia calls “pops”. This began before the full-scale aggression against Ukraine was launched, and is now firmly rooted in the lexicon of Russian propaganda. Russian media use this word to define absolutely all explosions, regardless of their nature and source.

According to a study conducted by the Russian publication “Meduza”, at the end of 2017, in the media, news with the word “pop” could be counted in the tens, and already in 2019, in the thousands.

Russia began to change words in order to avoid panic among the people. They say that the news about the “pops” will not frighten the society as much as the information about the “explosions”. At present, Russia's goal has not changed. This concept should still reassure society and inspire the opinion that nothing serious is happening. A “pop”, according to propaganda, on a subconscious level causes less anxiety and negative associations.

With the help of a newspeak, people in every possible way complicate the process of understanding the course of events and their meaning. In addition, the absence of war also implies the absence of explosions, therefore, after the start of the “special operation” on the territory of Russia, from time to time there are precisely “pops”, which have long been familiar to the inhabitants of Russia, and in Ukraine are better known as “cotton”, that is translation of the same Russian word but with different stress. 

This is the third text for the new section “Newspeak”, which Detector Media is launching as part of the “Disinformation Chronicles” project. In it, we will tell and explain new lexemes used by Russian propaganda to distort reality.

We recall that the newspeak is an artificial language from George Orwell's dystopian novel “1984”. In the novel, Newspeak names words that lose their original meaning and have a completely opposite connotation. For example: war - peace. According to the plot of the novel, such a technique was used by the totalitarian party. It was it that gained popularity among representatives of real totalitarian regimes. In particular, Nazi and Russian.

Such messages are distributed in anonymous telegram channels and Russian media. They say that Kyiv began to openly threaten Moscow. Like, against the background of the victories of the Russian army, the West began to look for ways to turn the tide. Allegedly, Washington plans to seize the temporarily occupied Crimea. This is manipulation.

The propagandists used the words of Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the Office of the President, as the basis. He said that Ukraine has begun negotiations with partners on the supply of long-range missiles and aircraft. Podoliak noted that aviation is needed to cover the military, and missiles are needed to destroy Russian weapons depots, including in Crimea. It was this thesis that the propagandists used for manipulation. Using the tactics of substitution of concepts, the Russians began to call attacks on warehouses with weapons terrorist attacks.

Russia systematically spreads messages that discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the inhabitants of the temporarily occupied Crimea. Earlier, they wrote that the Ukrainian army plans to “recapture” Crimea in Russia, and after the liberation, it will deport 800,000 Crimeans. Or propagandists claimed that Ukraine “changed its mind” about returning Crimea, and Ukrainians rejoice that war has come to the peninsula.