Propaganda sources disseminate information that representatives of the Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support kidnapped and brutally beat 20-year-old Lviv student Oleksandr Hashevskyi, who came on vacation to the Carpathians. According to propagandists, after the beating the guy was not provided with the necessary medical care; they began to drive him around the Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support in the Ivano-Frankivsk region in order to “register the case”. Subsequently, the body of allegedly Oleksandr Hashevskyi was found in the Tysa River. Thus, the Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support workers allegedly decided to cover up the murder and make it out of the fugitive.

In fact, information about the disappearance of 20-year-oldOleksandr Hashevskyi while on vacation in the Carpathians was manipulated. On July 17, 2024, on the banks of the Tysa River, Hungarian border guards discovered the body of a man, in whose pocket they found a student card named Oleksandr Hashevskyi. However, identification of the body is still ongoing. Already on July 18, law enforcement officers opened corresponding criminal proceedings in Lviv.

Oleksandr’s father, Mykola Hashevskyi, suggests that his son could have been detained by Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support representatives. However, there is no evidence of this. Representative of the Transcarpathian Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support Serhii Hudak, in a comment to the Suspilne (Public), said that information about Oleksandr Hashevskyi was checked in the databases and there was no such person in the territorial recruitment centers of the region.

The Public also asked for comment from the press officer of the Ivano-Frankivsk Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support, Dmytro Boikaniuk. He replied: “The representatives of the Verkhovyna Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support did not stop, disembark or check this person (Oleksandr Hashevskyi - Ed.). No one saw him there and no one knew him. He was not a member of the Verkhovyna Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support”. Representative of the Mukachevo border detachment Lesia Fedorova added that the border guards also did not detain Oleksandr Hashevskyi.

Official investigative actions and the search for Oleksandr Hashevskyi are still ongoing, and his parents are awaiting the results of a DNA examination. The 20-year-old's parents also went to Hungary for an identification procedure, but they were unable to identify the body.

So, the information about the brutal beating and murder of Oleksandr Hashevskyi by representatives of the Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support has no real evidence. Propagandists have manipulated an individual incident and are trying to present it as a trend by distorting the circumstances of what happened.

Russian telegram channels, citing material from the Italian publication Database Italia, report that the Zelenskyi family acquired a wine estate from the English singer Sting. The text notes that the corresponding agreement was concluded on June 28, 2024, and the value of the property is about 60-75 million euros. Moreover, according to the publication, data about this agreement was published in the tax register of real estate in Italy.

However, this information is fake, writes the Center for Countering Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council. The Database Italia website, which became the primary source of the fake, was included in the rating of web resources disseminating misinformation in Italian in 2021. This pseudo-publication published a number of fakes about Ukraine, in particular about “American biological laboratories”. After all, the “news” from Database Italia has been repeatedly refuted by Italian fact-checkers.

This fake is being spread as part of Russia’s large-scale disinformation campaign to discredit the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi and the First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska.

We have previously recorded similar fakes by Russians. In particular, Olena Zelenska’s purchase of a Bugatti Tourbillon for 4.5 million euros, as well as Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s purchase of one of the largest casino hotels in Europe, the approximate price of which was 150 million pounds sterling.

Pro-Kremlin media, referring to the so-called “Mykolaiv movement”, are disseminating information about the appearance of “black transplantologists” in the Sumy region. According to propagandists, they come from the West and drive foreign medical vehicles.

In fact, this information is not true. The Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council writes about this. This fake is part of the Russian campaign for the prosperity of black transplantation in Ukraine. The Center for countering disinformation did an extensive study on this topic, where it described in detail such Russian stuffing.

Russians have been conducting an information campaign about black transplantology since 2014. To do this, they produce fake stories, documents, articles and news. The goal is to discredit the military-political leadership of Ukraine and create a negative image of the state in the eyes of the international community.

We have previously recorded similar fakes. For example, about the creation of groups of donors from the Ukrainian military or about the fact that in Ukraine children are sold for organs.

The propaganda telegram channel, in its section #нам_пишуть  (they write to us), distributed a message from a reader. The woman sent a photo of a sign containing the inscription “Ukraine is not a state”. According to her, she took this photo on vacation in Turkey.

However, the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council, having verified this information with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, reported that this was another fake.

Having additionally analyzed the image using the FotoForensics tool, we found a clear light fragment in the area of the sign. Thus, the inscription on the sign was probably artificially superimposed.

The Center adds that such stuffing can be used to create tension between Ukraine and other states. Ultimately, propagandists seek to weaken the Ukrainian position both internally and externally and feed their narrative of a 404 country.

Propagandists are disseminating information to Western audiences that Ukrainian partisans in the city of Bragadiru (Romania) set fire to a fuel train used by NATO troops to conduct proxies in Ukraine. The Ukrainians did this supposedly to show their protest against the death of their compatriots in the interests of NATO. As proof that such an incident actually happened, propagandists added a video of the fire. For their part, the Romanian authorities allegedly officially reported this incident, but the cause was called a short circuit.

However, propagandists are outright lying, the Ukrainians did not set fire to the fuel composition. This was reported by the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council, citing the Romanian Ministry of National Defense, which denied information about the fire.

The video of the fire, distributed by pro-Russian sources, has no relation to Bragadiru or to any other city in Romania. Also, the Romanian authorities did not report the fact of arson at any of the fuel compositions in the country. In the end, the Romanian media did not report such an incident either.

This fake information is spreading in the information space of European countries, in particular Romania, in order to manipulate public opinion, undermine trust in Ukraine, and also illustrate the imaginary threat from Ukrainian refugees or partisans.

Previously, we recorded Russian manipulation, saying that Ukrainian partisans burned down a drone production plant in Lviv.