Propagandists use various conspiracy theories to justify Russian aggression against Ukraine. In this case, we are talking about the Bilderberg Club - a real-life private annual meeting of world leaders. It was originally held to prevent a world war, but now, according to its participants, it is an unfiltered discussion about the future of the world.

However, the confidentiality surrounding the group has not only led to various criticisms of it and its activities from different political positions, but also to a number of conspiracy theories. Different categories of conspiracy theorists have different versions about the group's intentions. Some left-wing or less specifically oriented political groups accuse the Bilderberg group of either covertly imposing or generally supporting capitalist dominance and corporate power, while right-wing activists and Russian propagandists are accusing them of imposing or promoting world government and global planned austerity. Right-wing conspiracy theorists typically view the group as a central decision-making body, or at least attribute significant importance to its role, while most left-wing or apolitical conspiracy theorists view it only as one of the institutions that help promote international corporate interests and ideology.

In August 2010, former Cuban President Fidel Castro wrote an article for the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma in which he referenced Daniel Estulin's 2006 book, “Secrets of the Bilderberg Club”, which Castro said described “the ill-fated Bilder lobby groups”. They say they are manipulating the public “to establish a world government that knows no boundaries and is answerable to no one but itself”.

Russia is spreading this theory, emphasizing that the war in Ukraine is also a plan of this club. Like, it wasn’t Russia that started it, but Russia was framed. This theory is another form of the world government theory that we wrote about earlier. According to him, the world is ruled by a separate elite, which creates a bunch of crises in order to reduce the population.

Propagandists are distributing supposedly real correspondence between the wives of military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on anonymous telegram channels. These reports claim that the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is allegedly hiding real losses among the military and evading payments to the families of the victims. This information is false.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found out that this “correspondence” is distributed only by Russian and pro-Russian telegram channels. Message texts are formal in nature.

From the photographs it is clear that messages were sent at regular one-minute intervals, regardless of the length of the text. It is unlikely that a woman who had just learned of the death of her husband could so accurately observe these intervals in her answers.

The messages also incorrectly use the name Artem. First, one of the wives calls her husband by this name, then uses the shortened form “Tema” whereas in Ukrainian it would be “Tioma”, and in Russian it would be “Tiema”. Thus, it can be assumed that the text was incorrectly translated from Russian.

The texts of this correspondence are filled with Russian stereotypes about large losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, lack of payments, incompetence of command and calls for the murder of commanders. In fact, the losses of the Ukrainian side are much less than what is covered in the Russian media. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi mentioned the number of deaths - 31 thousand over two years of a full-scale invasion.

Propagandists spread such fake news to discredit the Ukrainian armed forces.  Detector Media refuted other similar fakes created against the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Propagandists are disseminating information that allegedly the Ukrainian Embassy in Tajikistan posted a message with contacts of the International Defense Legion of Ukraine to attract citizens of Tajikistan to the terrorist attack that recently occurred in Moscow. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found out that updates were being made on the Legion website at the address indicated in the message. Information and contacts of the International Legion are available through another web address and on social networks, where a single email address is provided for requests. A check through the Hunter service confirmed the existence of the specified email, which is not publicly available.

In addition, propaganda sources indicated the real contact number of the Legion, updated along with the website address. However, the previous telephone numbers indicated on the old version of the site and the number indicated in the fake message do not match the official contacts of the Ukrainian Embassy in Tajikistan.

According to Ukrainian law, foreigners who join Ukraine's military forces must meet certain criteria, including legal residence in the country and no criminal record.

Russian propaganda uses such fabrications to accuse Ukraine of involvement in a terrorist attack for which representatives of the Islamic State have claimed responsibility. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry strongly rejects any accusations of involvement in terrorism, emphasizing Ukraine's obligations to international anti-terrorism conventions.

Propagandists are spreading information on social networks citing an article by the NY Daily News, that the Paramount Pictures studio, commissioned by Kvartal 95, will begin filming the blockbuster “The Price of Victory”, dedicated to the life path of Volodymyr Zelenskyi from comedian to president. According to them, James Mangold will direct, and Sean Penn, Shia LaBeouf or Jeremy Renner are being considered for the lead role. The film's budget is allegedly estimated at 115 million US dollars. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found out that the website that published this news was registered on January 18, 2024, shortly before the fake news appeared. At the same time, the site positions itself as a publication founded in 1975 by journalist J.R. McDouglas, information about which is not available in open sources. The name of the publication on the website is listed as New York News Daily, although the correct name should be New York News Daily. The fake resource is trying to imitate a real American publication with a similar name, founded in 1919, which has a good reputation. It is easy to confuse the two sites due to the similarity of domain names. The contact information on the fake site is incomplete or unclear, using placeholder text, highlighting its questionable reliability. The publication describes itself as the standard of journalism, however, it publishes contradictory articles that do not meet the standards of objectivity and honesty, and duplicate the fakes of Russian propaganda, especially on the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

They also discovered a “producer” profile on social network X, where the tweets that first shared the information likely originated. Access to the page was restricted at the time of writing, but an archived copy exists. Using facial identification tool PimEyes, VoxCheck analysts determined that the photograph was indeed that of Venezuelan surgeon Henry Garcia. So, a fake account allegedly produced by Paramount Pictures on platform X was created specifically to publish information about the non-existent film “The Price of Victory”.

The script of this film, which is given by propagandists, also looks rather implausible. For example, in one scene, President Zelenskyi is asked about the greatness of Ukraine, to which he responds with criticism of the situation in the country, in particular, recalling the years under the rule of the regime and the oligarchs, the restriction of freedom of speech and the violation of human rights. It’s hard to believe that a Ukrainian studio would agree to such a scenario in the current conditions.

In addition, propagandists recall that the cooperation between Paramount Pictures and the Kvartal 95 studio was allegedly facilitated by director Oleksandr Rodnianskyi through his company AR Content Studio, which previously worked with Paramount TV. However, there is no publicly available information confirming this collaboration. In 2022, Rodnianskyi did mention plans to make a film with the American company Anonymous Content about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, based on Peter Pomerantsev's article “We Can Only Be Enemies”, with Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi as director. There is no information yet about the implementation stage of this project.

Paramount Pictures, Kvartal 95, James Mangold, Sean Penn, and Jeremy Renner also did not announce the creation of the film “The Price of Victory” about the President of Ukraine. No reliable world or Ukrainian media confirmed this information. In addition, on the IMDb website, which is the largest resource about cinema, there is no information about the filming of such a film about Zelenskyi.

By spreading such fakes, propagandists want to discredit Zelenskyi. They say that while things are difficult in Ukraine, the president is spending a lot of money on a film about himself. Detector Media also refuted other fakes aimed at discrediting Zelenskyi.

Russian propagandists are spreading false information that Ukraine is not in fact a sovereign state, since its international passport has “Ukraine” printed on it instead of “Republic of Ukraine”, unlike the passports of European Union countries. However, this is not true.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to this fake. They found out that Ukraine is the full name of the state, and therefore “Ukraine” is marked on the cover of the Ukrainian passport. This practice is standard in many countries around the world, including members of the European Union. For example, a Czech passport says “Czech Republic”, and a Polish passport says “Republic of Poland”.

However, not all EU member states use the word “republic” in the name of their countries, as propagandists claim. This is because not all of them are republics. For example, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Spain and Sweden are kingdoms and therefore do not have the word “republic” on their passports. Also on the passports of other European republics, such as Hungary, Romania and Ireland, one can only see the name of the country without this word.

On passports of different countries one can see different approaches to indicating the full name of the state. Therefore, the claim that Ukraine is not a state due to the absence of the word “republic” on its passport is baseless.

Propagandists spread such fakes to justify Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine by the fact that Ukraine does not seem to be a real state.