This was recorded by the fact-checkers of the “Brekhunets” (Liar) project. They say that unknown persons are allegedly calling on behalf of the chairman of the Volyn Regional Military Administration, Yurii Pohuliaiko, and sending a fake letter to Viber with a request to send funds. The report says that the funds will allegedly be directed to equipment for the Ukrainian army.

The Volyn Regional Military Administration noted that they did not send such letters and did not make phone calls. Karina Marynevych, the head of the information policy department of the Volyn Regional Military Administration, assured that such fraudulent schemes do not appear for the first time, and they know how to deal with it. It also conveyed this information to the head of the Volyn RMA, and he will soon come out with a statement about the fake on his pages of social networks.

This thesis was circulated on social networks, in particular on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. The reports say that allegedly representatives of the LGBTQI+ community do not serve in the Ukrainian army, because the Ukrainian leader simply pretends to support the so-called Western values regarding LGBTQI. Like, these are all attempts to drag Ukraine into the “LGBTQI trap”. The authors say that Ukraine will not get out of it. Such a thesis is unfounded.

People with homosexual orientation serve in the Ukrainian army. In 2018, an association “Ukrainian LGBT military for equal rights” was created in Ukraine. The founder of this organization is the then volunteer of the Donbas battalion, and now a fighter of the 72nd separate mechanized brigade named after Black Zaporozhians Viktor Pylypenko, who made the first coming out as a veteran participant in hostilities. The organization says that their organization has 300 LGBTQI+ military, including 20 couples, and these are only those who have an active social position.

At the same time, in Ukraine, the LGBTQI+ community is supported in every possible way, in particular, by registering a draft law on registered partnerships. According to it, people of any gender can register a relationship. That is, partners acquire the status of close relatives.

Pity is a fairly strong human emotion, because it appeals to a sense of justice and can cause a strong thirst for revenge on those who are the offender and aggressor. Russian propaganda uses these features of psychology in the “image of the victim” tactic. It often works together and is intertwined with heroization tactics, creating a synergistic effect.

An example of the use of “insulting the victim” is one of the key Russian propaganda narratives about “the children of Donbas, who were killed for 8 years”. Its symbolic expression is the so-called “Alley of Angels”, which was opened in Donetsk in 2015. The names of the children who died as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war are minted there. The blame for this is laid, of course, on “Ukrainian Nazis and Bandera”. Russian propaganda deliberately does not mention that these children would be alive if there had not been a Russian military invasion in Donetsk and Luhansk region in 2014. So the occupiers want to shift the responsibility for unleashing the war and war crimes to Ukraine and justify their full-scale aggression in 2022 by appealing to the “killed children of Donbas”.

One of the fakes fueling the “8 years” narrative is the story of a little “boy in panties” allegedly crucified on a bulletin board “like Jesus”. “Ukrainian Nazi punishers” allegedly did this in 2014 in Sloviansk because the boy was the son of a Russian aggressor from the so-called DNR. True, the woman who told the propagandists this “shocking” story did not become happy in Russia and in 2021 complained about discrimination based on nationality in a “multinational country”.

Another key justification for full-scale aggression is the narrative that supposedly “Russia is defending itself against the Ukrainian Nazis and NATO” and its attack is only a preemptive strike. A number of different messages were used here, such as the existence of NATO biological laboratories in Ukraine for the development of biological weapons directed against Russia, as well as alleged attempts by Ukraine to create a “dirty nuclear bomb”, etc. In this narrative, the term “russophobia” plays an important role, which affects any negative reaction of other countries and the international community as a whole to the aggressive actions of Russia, and not only in Ukraine.

After the start of a full-scale Russian war against Ukraine in 2022, the concept of “russophobia” began to be used much more often, although it was talked about at least in the early 2000s. He tells the world allegedly about discrimination against Russia and Russians and double standards on it, which are used by the “collective West”. There is an appeal to Western liberal values and an attempt to put “russophobia” on a par with such, of course, negative phenomena as racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, homophobia, and so on.

Such information was disseminated in social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that one of the Ukrainian websites published the number of “victims of the counteroffensive”. It is not true.

Fact-checkers of the StopFake project investigated this case and found out that such a site really exists. However, the site was created by propagandists. It turned out that it can only be found through the Russian search engine Yandex. As well as the cache of the site is saved on the Russian search engine. That is, the site is published in the Russian segment of the network. There are no public projects involved in counting the dead and wounded during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. This information is confidential.

However, the Ukrainian military leadership noted that the losses in the Armed Forces of Ukraine are much less than in the Russian army. Thus, the authors are trying to demoralize the Ukrainians and once again speculate on the topic of the counteroffensive. We have repeatedly refuted such cases. For example, in one of these cases, the propagandists tried to convince the West that the Ukrainian counteroffensive was a failure and that they were preparing to lose.

Such information was disseminated in social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that the humor magazine recently published a cover featuring the Simpsons family who were left without a sofa because it “went to the needs of Ukraine”. It is not true.

Fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project investigated this case and found that such a cover does not exist. The fact checkers explained that the fake cover indicated that this was an issue for May 2023. However, neither on the website of the publication, nor on the official pages in social networks there is a photo with such a cover.

Thus propagandists seek to show that their rhetoric is also being repeated in the West. So readers may get the impression that the whole world is opposed to Ukraine.

This thesis was circulated on social networks, in particular on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. The reports talk about the alleged worsening of relations between Poland and Hungary due to the “future division” of Ukraine. Like, countries are already choosing Ukrainian territories that will be included in their states. And now the two countries are competing and cannot get along. The authors will report that the Polish officials themselves announced the deterioration of relations between the countries.

The fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project took up the case, and found out that Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki really spoke about the relations between the two states. He stated that their relationship with Hungary had changed because of Hungary's position on the Russian-Ukrainian war. The official explained that they cooperated powerfully, but now the level of support has obviously decreased. This is not the first time that Poland has criticized Hungary's position. For example, in April 2022, the chairman of the Bureau of International Policy under the President of Poland, Jakub Kumoch, said that they did not like the position of the Hungarian authorities towards Ukraine.

Propagandists seek to distort reality and convince that relations between Poland and Hungary have changed because the countries allegedly want to cut off Ukrainian territories. In fact, Polish politicians express their clear position on Russian aggression.