Anonymous Telegram channels are throwing around theories that Volodymyr Zelenskyi “started” the Kursk operation in order to once again attract the attention of the world community to Ukraine. They say that Volodymyr Zelenskyi is gradually losing the support of his strategic partners. At the same time, they allegedly referred to an article from the Financial Times, which talks about the “losing situation” around the Kursk region on the part of the Ukrainian army.

“The Kursk operation changes the “balance of attrition” not in Ukraine's favor, since it will already lose”, say the propagandists.

Ukrainian troops broke through the Russian border in the Sumy region on Tuesday, August 6. On August 12, President Zelenskyi wrote for the first time that Ukraine was conducting an operation in Russia's Kursk Oblast. On August 12, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that Ukraine controls almost 1,000 km of the Kursk region. As of August 21, 93 settlements in Russia are under Ukraine's control.

The thesis about “returning attention” is another attempt by propagandists to justify the Ukrainian operation in the Kursk region of Russia. After all, in this way the fake news makers are looking for a justification for Ukraine's actions and at the same time maintaining the internal mood of the population.

Moreover, the Financial Times article does not say at all that the Ukrainian Armed Forces operation in the Kursk region had any “catastrophic” impact on Ukraine’s defense capability. The article emphasizes that due to the Kursk operation, Ukrainian servicemen in Donbas have to ration the amount of ammunition, and soldiers “may face an even longer stay at the front without rotation”. Moreover, this is the conclusion of the authors of the publication themselves, that is, an assumption.

Read on Censor.NET: The US is allegedly involved in the operation in the Kursk region.

Anonymous Telegram channels, in particular the propaganda channel Niezależny Dziennik Polityczny, are spreading so-called graffiti, which was allegedly drawn by Ukrainian refugees in one of the Polish cities. In the picture, you can see a red and black flag and the inscription “Our Father Bandera”. In another photo, there is the text: “... children, do not learn Polish, only Ukrainian”. The messages claim that the photos were taken in one place.

However, using reverse Google search, it was possible to establish that the graffiti photos were published only in pro-Russian segments of social networks. Moreover, the photos were first published 5 days ago as of September 2, 2024. Before that, no important Polish media, including local organizations, had published such news. So, it is most likely that the photos were faked with the help of special editors.

We have documented fakes many times, whether they involve fake graffiti, foreign magazine covers/newspaper columns, or advertising videos. In this way, propagandists aim to show that their rhetoric (for example, that Zelenskyi is hated by the whole world) is also repeated in the West. This may make readers think that the public is really unhappy with Ukraine. And especially when the authors use elements of popular culture, implying that people are laughing at the situation in Ukraine and that the Ukrainian agenda is a reason for Europe to laugh.

Thus, Russian propaganda tries to present Ukrainian refugees as criminals or terrorists, as a cultural and economic threat to the EU - in order to reduce support for Ukraine. We mentioned this in our own research. Since the beginning of the great war in Ukraine, Russian propaganda has been trying to discredit refugees who were forced to leave Ukraine to save their lives.

Propagandists regularly spread fakes about them; they call refugees dependents; they claim that they went abroad not for safety, but for profit; they spread various diseases, etc. Propagandists need this to stake out the opinion that Ukrainians are pagans who do not appreciate the help that residents of other countries give them; they take advantage of the kindness of residents of other countries.

For example, we recently reported that anonymous people were spreading a fake story from the supposedly French publication Le Figaro, which spoke of a “Ukrainian refugee killer”.

On August 26, 2024, Russian troops launched a missile attack on the Aurora Hotel in Kryvyi Rih, killing four people and wounding five more. After that, anonymous Telegram channels began to claim that this was not a civilian facility, but a deployment site for soldiers from the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. As proof, the propagandists added a screenshot of a Facebook message from Polish volunteer Aneta Rabushko-Borkowska, who allegedly spoke about the “destruction of Polish soldiers”.

However, there is no such publication on the Polish volunteer's Facebook page. Propagandists compiled this screenshot and invented the content of the publication. In a comment to Ukrinform, Anet denied writing a post about the “destruction of Polish soldiers” in the Kryvyi Rih hotel. All the information was simply made up.

Russia is trying to hide its criminal actions against peaceful Ukrainians and finds an excuse that shelling military facilities is the norm for war. However, Ukrainian cities are suffering from Russian missiles and drones. That is, the authors are trying to deny their own shelling and hits on civilian infrastructure. They distort reality and convince in their “truth”. And they claim: wherever they hit, there were definitely soldiers there. However, the authors do not provide any facts.

At the same time, Russian propaganda substitutes the concept and calls the foreign legion mercenaries. The foreign legion is legally part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the exact number of its participants is not reported, as are all other fighters. Accordingly, Russian propaganda wants to downplay the importance of the Ukrainian army, contrasting it with the so-called “mercenaries”, of whom there are supposedly more on the battlefield. At the same time, Moscow equates “mercenaries” with criminals in the context of Ukraine. However, mercenaries are indeed fighting on the Russian side, for example, the Wagner group representatives.

Propagandists claimed that soldiers from EU countries fought on the territory of Ukraine even before the full-scale invasion or that the number of foreigners in the Ukrainian army will soon exceed 50%. Thus, Russian propaganda wants to create the appearance that in reality it is not fighting with Ukraine, but with the so-called “collective West”.

The anonymous telegrams refer to the words of the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Kateryna Pavlichenko, who said that children will be taken away from residents of the Sumy region for refusing to evacuate. At the same time, in the propaganda message itself, they add that in this way, the Ukrainian authorities, under the guise of evacuation, are taking children away to be sold into slavery or for organs.

VoxCheck analysts explained that the report does not provide any evidence that children are being sold. Accusations of selling children into slavery and for organs are baseless theses, with which Russia is only trying to intimidate residents of frontline territories.

Evacuation from the 5-kilometer zone along the border with the Russian Federation in the Sumy region was announced back in July 2023. In March 2024, forced evacuation of children from three settlements also began, and in April this order was extended to two communities in the Sumy region. During May-June, mandatory evacuation was announced in several more settlements.

Parents do not have the right to refuse the evacuation of their children. Parents who refuse evacuation may bear administrative or criminal liability for failure to fulfill their responsibilities to raise their children. In case of proof of violation of Article 166 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (malicious failure of parents to fulfill their statutory obligations to care for a child), by decision of the court or the guardianship authority, the child may be transferred to other relatives at their request, or, if there are none, to the guardianship and trusteeship authority. In exceptional cases, in the event of an immediate threat to the life or health of the child, the guardianship and trusteeship authority or law enforcement officers may decide to immediately remove the child without depriving them of parental rights or depriving them of parental rights.

However, in this case, the priority is the safety of the children, not the punishment of the parents. Therefore, law enforcement and local authorities try to persuade parents or other guardians to leave with the children.

“Black transplantology” in Ukraine is a conspiracy theory that Russians have been developing for a decade. The constant return to the topic indicates its importance for Russia. These messages are promoted to both domestic and international audiences.

Read also: How and why Russia uses the topic of “black transplantology” in Ukraine

A “news story” has been spreading on social media, purporting to show British MP Andrew Bridgen claiming that NATO is planning to carry out a false flag attack on a European city using a nuclear “dirty bomb” and blame it on Russia.

But fact-checkers at VoxCheck reported that Andrew Bridgen provides no evidence for his thesis. Moreover, he has repeatedly spread conspiracy theories.

A reverse search was used to find an interview, an excerpt from which was distributed by propagandists. It was published on June 20, 2024, on the YouTube channel Resistance GB. The Guardian journalists found out that this channel spreads conspiracy theories, in particular, anti-vaccination narratives.

Mr. Bridgen did not provide any evidence, names of experts, details, etc., by which this information could be verified. The statement about a “NATO plan to detonate a bomb” has already been invented in Russian channels. In his messages in X, Bridgen also promotes pro-Russian narratives, in particular calling the transfer of military aid to Ukraine an “escalation”.

Russia is speculating on the use of a “dirty bomb” to sow distrust in Ukraine and force the world to spend resources on refuting the accusations of propagandists. An IAEA commission came to Ukraine to check whether a “dirty bomb” was really being developed at the sites that Russia claimed to be developing – the Eastern Mining and Processing Plant in Zhovti Vody and the Institute for Nuclear Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The result of the inspection was that the Agency did not find any signs of such a weapon at Ukrainian nuclear sites.

The fake news about Ukraine creating a “dirty bomb” is a mirror response from Russia, the purpose of which is to try to convince the world that it is Ukraine that is acting as a terrorist group. This, by the way, is one of the most common messages of Russian propaganda, constantly trying to accuse Ukraine of terrorism, saying that it itself is shelling Ukrainian civilians and launching missile strikes on its own critical infrastructure.

Read more on “Dirty Bomb”: What is it and why did Russia come up with this fake?

Anonymous Telegram channels are spreading a video that appears to show a soldier forcibly evacuating residents of Vovchansk in order to “then freely rob their homes”.

VoxCheck analysts explained that the Kharkiv region authorities announced the evacuation of Vovchansk precisely because of constant Russian shelling and the threat of occupation. In addition, the person in the video is not a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but an employee of the National Police.

The excerpt distributed by the Kremlin's henchmen is part of a video about the evacuation of Vovchansk, which was published on May 23, 2024, on the YouTube channel by the host of Channel 24. It shows, in particular, the evacuation of a family with a child who did not want to leave. In the end, they agreed to temporarily leave the city.

Parents cannot refuse to evacuate their children. Otherwise, they may be subject to administrative or criminal liability for failure to fulfill their child-rearing responsibilities. However, in this case, the priority is the safety of the children, not the punishment of the parents. Therefore, law enforcement officers and local authorities are trying to convince parents or other guardians to leave with their children. In fact, this is also shown in the video – a law enforcement officer explains to the parents why they need to leave.

On May 10, 2024, the Russian army launched an offensive in the north of the Kharkiv region. Due to the threat to the lives and health of local residents, the evacuation of the population from the city was accelerated on the same day.