In the run-up to the second round of the presidential elections in Moldova, local pro-Russian Telegram channels distributed a video by Oleksii Arestovych, in which he says that if Moldovan citizens do not vote for Maia Sandu, “the Ukrainian army will come to Moldova with war”. Local propaganda Telegram channels interpreted this video in such a way that Kyiv is allegedly threatening Moldovan citizens and, accordingly, interfering in the elections.

In fact, the words of Oleksii Arestovych do not reflect the official position of the Ukrainian government, because today he is not its representative . On January 17, 2023, he was dismissed from the post of adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine. This was preceded by a statement by MP Tetiana Tsyba with an appeal to the head of the OPU Andrii Yermak with a request to dismiss Arestovych after his statements that the tragedy of January 14, 2023 in Dnipro allegedly occurred due to the shooting down of a Russian missile by the air defense systems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition, at the same time, the MPs collectively appealed to the SBU, accusing Arestovych of treason.

After all, Ukraine respects international law and the territorial integrity of Moldova, and both countries have the status of candidates for membership in the European Union, so Arestovych’s statement about the Ukrainian army’s invasion of this neighboring country is also unfounded.

Pro-Russian sources are distributing a video in which a priest of the Greek Catholic Cathedral in Ivano-Frankivsk allegedly says during a liturgy that Donald Trump is “the Antichrist, the devil” and “with his arrival the end of the world will come”. Therefore, on the eve of the presidential elections, the priest allegedly called on believers to pray for the “prudence of the American people”.

However, the video distributed by Russian propagandists is a deepfake. This was reported on the official media resource of the Ivano-Frankivsk Archeparchy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. For the deepfake, the fakers used the image and voice of Father Stepan Balahura, the syncellus for clergy and priestly families of the Ivano-Frankivsk Archeparchy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. 

The basis for the deepfake was a broadcast of the liturgy from the Archcathedral on November 5, 2024, posted on the YouTube platform in open access. During the service, the priest did not talk about Trump and certainly did not call him the “antichrist” and “devil”.

This disinformation is an attempt by propagandists to influence Ukrainians' perception of Donald Trump, who has already been re-elected as US President. We previously analyzed the Russian fake that Ukrainian Greek Catholics were exempted from mobilization.

During the latest monitoring of the information field of the countries of the Global South, the Center for Countering Disinformation identified a number of narratives that are beneficial to Russia, in particular:

- Ukrainian “peace plans” and “victory plans” boil down to drawing Western countries into the “conflict”;

- NATO troops are taking part in the war on the side of Ukraine;

- US military aid only prolongs the war in Ukraine and makes its diplomatic resolution impossible.

Among other things, news about the participation of North Korean troops in the Russian-Ukrainian war was covered in almost all countries in the region. The situation caused some concern – the media spread statements by world leaders about the threat to global security from the alliance of Russia and the DPRK. At the same time, in China this topic continues to be almost completely ignored.

Also, the attention of journalists in the Global South, as well as the entire world, was riveted on the presidential elections in the USA. Many opinion pieces appeared on how the results of the elections in the USA could influence the course of the war in Ukraine. In Latin America, they wrote about a diplomatic settlement of the war.

The prospects of BRICS remain a hot topic in Chinese media. It was said that BRICS could become a “powerful platform for a major overhaul” of the current system of international order, which a number of influential states in the Global South consider unfair.

In turn, in the Middle East, the media discussed the West’s “double standards” regarding the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and demanded more attention from the world community to the civilian casualties resulting from the bombing of Gaza.

Russian propaganda Telegram channels are spreading a quote from the alleged Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine Oksana Zholnovych, according to which the receipt of high special pensions by judges and prosecutors is due to their “legal literacy”. Zholnovych's quote allegedly sounds like this: “There are about 740 thousand special pensioners, whose payments can exceed 100-120 thousand UAH per month. These pensions are a long-standing tradition, they are used, in particular, by judges and prosecutors. I am not saying that they are scum. I am saying that they are legally literate and know how to use the law correctly”.

In fact, this is a fake. Oksana Zholnovych did not make such a statement, writes the VoxCheck project. This fake quote is only being spread by some social media users, while reliable Ukrainian media do not have this statement, although such justification of high pensions for prosecutors and judges by the minister would certainly cause a public outcry.

The propagandists add a photo of the minister to their messages, which was published on October 24, 2024 by Forbes along with a recent interview. The interview also does not contain a statement. Zholnovych mentioned the issue of special pensions, but in a different context. She said that some people can abuse special disability pensions and criticized the current system, noting that such special pensions should only be given to those who really need them.

It is impossible to verify the information that 740 thousand special pensioners receive payments above 100-120 thousand UAH per month. At the same time, according to the Pension Fund of Ukraine, as of October 2024, 1.3 million pensioners (12.7%) receive a pension above 10 thousand UAH. However, the department does not note how many pensioners are paid more than 100 thousand UAH.

Earlier we wrote about a fake, which was that Germany would allegedly pay pensions to refugees from Ukraine aged 57.5-60 years.

In the run-up to the US presidential election, Russian resources were spreading information that the Pennsylvania state government was forcing voters from the state's Ukrainian community to vote for Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump. If they did not, the Pennsylvania government would allegedly stop funding the Tryzub (Trident) church and other Ukrainian projects. In reporting this, the propagandists referred to a video allegedly from the American publication PennLive, in which the leader of the Ukrainian community allegedly made a corresponding statement.

In fact, this information is fake. This is written in the VoxCheck project. PennLive did not publish such a video on its official website, nor on its pages on Facebook, Ixi or Instagram.

It is worth noting that Pennsylvania does indeed have one of the largest Ukrainian diasporas — at least 112,000 people — as well as a network of Ukrainian churches. However, a search of open sources, in particular, in American media and Google Maps, showed that there is no church called Tryzub (Trident) in Pennsylvania.

With this fake, the Russians are trying to claim that Ukrainians in Pennsylvania were allegedly blackmailed and essentially left with no choice of who to vote for. At the same time, it is already known that Trump won in Pennsylvania, thus receiving 19 electoral votes.

We previously wrote about a fake video story that showed the US elections as the main target of a “Ukrainian disinformation campaign”.