This thesis was spread on social networks, in particular on anonymous telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that Ukraine provoked Russia and decided to “attack Ukraine”. They say that Ukraine’s constant European integration course harms Russia, because its enemy, the European Union, was approaching Russian borders. The authors conclude: Russia has carried out a large-scale offensive on the territory of Ukraine and is legitimately defending its values.

Analysts of the EU vs Disinfo project analyzed the case and explained that Russian aggression is aimed at the destruction of Ukraine as a state and the destruction of Ukrainians as a nation. The Russian army is committing genocide in Ukraine. The message about the destruction of Ukraine was expressed in early April by Russian political strategist Tymofii Serheitsev in an article on the website of the propaganda news agency RIA Novosti. The author proposed to destroy everything that makes Ukrainians Ukrainians, as well as to eliminate those who cannot be broken and conquered. The existence of Ukraine was denied, because “history has shown the impossibility of creating a state in Ukraine”.

In addition, Russia argues that Ukraine's desire to join NATO or the EU is a direct threat to Russia's security. However, Ukraine’s membership in any international organizations is the choice of Ukraine and its people, and not the imposed will of third parties.

In the end, the Kremlin, with the help of this message, is trying to justify Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine and finds third parties, blaming them for all the troubles. However, any political decisions in Ukraine are made by Ukrainian officials. Ukraine is ready to join any organization and support European initiatives, if there is the will of the people. Invading Ukraine was the decision of Russia and the Russians, which they supported either with appropriate statements or silence.

Such information was disseminated on social networks, in particular in the Georgian segment of Facebook. Reports say that US General Anthony Potts was killed in a Russian missile attack on NATO headquarters in Dnipro. It's a lie.

Georgian fact-checkers analyzed this case and explained that the American general actually died in a plane crash while on board a single-engine aircraft (Piper PA-28 Cherokee) on July 25, 2023. The plane crashed in Havre de Grace, Maryland. The cause of the accident is still unknown. The accident is being investigated by the US National Transportation Safety Board. That is, this is simply a spread of unconfirmed information from Russian propagandists.

Russian troops attacked Dnipro on July 28 and hit a high-rise building. As a result of the shelling, 60% of the apartments in the residential complex were damaged in one way or another. That is, Russia did not shell Dnipro on July 25 and then the general could not have died. He was in the USA.

However, in this way the authors seek to show that the Russian army is omnipotent and, they say, is ready to destroy the American military or fighters involved in NATO. Moreover, Russian propaganda demonstrates that NATO and the US military are directly involved in the Russian-Ukrainian war. That is why the occupiers are supposedly destroying their opponents on the territory of Ukraine.

But Russia is once again promoting the thesis about “countless NATO headquarters” in Ukraine and hinting that Western officials have an allegedly unhealthy interest in Ukrainian territories. Allegedly, Ukraine is already governed from the outside, and Ukrainian deputies, military personnel and other actors in the political process are generally incapable of making any decisions without prior approval.

Moreover, the Kremlin seeks to hide its own criminal actions against Ukrainians, hiding behind “military targets” that are supposedly a legitimate target. However, it is not military facilities that suffer from Russian missiles and drones, but Ukrainian peaceful cities and civilian infrastructure. In addition, any attack on another country, even on military targets, is a crime. The Kremlin’s baseless rumors about “shelling of military targets” exist to fuel the narrative of the West’s struggle against Russia.

We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the newspeak concept “decision-making centers”, with the help of which Moscow legitimizes the daily shelling of Ukraine and the killing of civilians. There you will also find a chronology of Russian shelling of residential buildings since the beginning of 2023.

This thesis was widespread in the Russian segment of Facebook. Reports say that the “LGBTQization” of Ukrainian society is in full swing. And even in Ukrainian schools they create special LGBT education circles. In the messages, propagandists add that Ukrainian teachers are pandering to Europeans so that they can see the level of development of Ukrainian schoolchildren and their love for homosexuality. Actually, the authors hint that Ukraine is forcibly engaged in the “LGBTization” of Ukrainians. An alleged screenshot from the website of the Ivano-Frankivsk Lyceum is added to the publication, where they talk about the corresponding circle and give the advantages of visiting it. Among these, there is a high probability of “successful employment” in European companies.

StopFake analysts analyzed this case and found out that such information was untrue. They turned to the leadership of the lyceum, who confirmed that such a circle does not exist. There is also no announcement on the official website of the educational institution about the enrollment of children in extracurricular clubs and sections. The latest announcements concern catering. That is, the fake bots compiled a screenshot of the site and posted false information.

However, disinformers present the creation of such a circle as something unsafe and unnecessary for Ukraine. Although this is an adequate practice to develop consciousness and diversity in children. In our Newspeak section, we explained why a terrorist country is horrified by diversity and cherishes exclusively “traditional values” among its citizens. In short, Moscow shows how being part of the LGBTQIA community is considered unacceptable, a person is discredited; or why a person is considered “wrong”. Consumers of propaganda may be under the false impression that everything related to LGBT people is negative. Homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality.

Russian propaganda presents any attempts by Ukraine to create a tolerant environment as a threat to the younger generation. Allegedly, children suffer from the dominance of “sodomy”, which is why, according to the Kremlin’s conclusions, Ukrainians are being turned into homosexuals. We described the horrors of Western “homodictatorship” and how Europe allegedly influences Ukraine in this way in a large study about homophobia on social networks.

By the way, read how Russia is trying to protect children from the “undesirable influence of LGBT people” here. Also, find out how it also justifies its invasion as an “LGBT invasion” in a study based on the results of an analysis of messages during the year of a full-scale invasion.

Such information was disseminated on social networks, in particular on anonymous telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. The reports note that allegedly two departments will be disbanded in the Rozhyshche multidisciplinary hospital (Volyn region) and 50 medical workers will be fired because they decided to send them to the front. The authors add that replacements are already being found to replace the mobilized personnel. The publications refer to the material from the Public. This is manipulation.

Fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project took up this case and found out that the Public article stated that the hospital plans to disband the maternity and children's departments by the end of 2023. That's why 50 health workers were fired. The director of the institution, Viktor Redzii, assured that such actions are caused by a lack of funding and a general lack of attendance at the departments. Consequently, propagandists distorted the context of the material and invented desired talking points to spread their agenda. Since the material did not talk about any mobilization of medical staff. Only about optimizing a medical facility.

The fact-checkers explain that according to the 2018 reform, the hospital financing system has changed. That is, the institution now receives funds for each patient visit, and not per bed, as it was before. So, if fewer patients come to the hospital, the institution receives less money from the National Health Service of Ukraine (NSHSU).

Interestingly, manipulative messages subsequently migrated to Facebook. There, a local user allegedly commented on a post by the Volyn News Group and also stated that doctors and physicians were being mobilized. She allegedly introduced herself as a former doctor of this particular hospital with ten years of work experience. But the Facebook page looks suspicious: it was created on August 24, 2023 as a page for a marketing agency, with Kharkiv as her city of residence. And in the work section it is noted: “Physical office nurse at the Volyn Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital”. The director of the Rozhyshche hospital denied information that such a person worked there.

So propagandists are trying to intimidate Ukrainians and spread panic among them. It seems that everything is so bad, there is no one to fight, so officials are forcibly mobilizing doctors to the front.

By the way, in our review of disinformation for August 21-27, 2023, we have collected a selection of fakes about the so-called total mobilization in Ukraine. But they explained what the Kremlin is trying to achieve when it claims that the Territorial center of recruitment and social support mobilizes pregnant women and their children. And in the Newspeak section, we found out how Russia mobilizes its resources, hiding behind the term “partial mobilization”.

This thesis was spread on social networks, in particular in telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that the so-called Western biological laboratories have already flooded the whole of Ukraine and are conducting experiments on the military there: in particular, they are testing vaccines of “unknown” origin. The experiments are allegedly carried out by the Pharmabiotest company, which is allegedly affiliated with clinics in the USA. The authors add that in the temporarily occupied Luhansk region, Russian troops found the corresponding “documents” confirming the testing. Interviews with supposedly Ukrainian prisoners of war are added to the publications.

VoxCheck project analysts analyzed this case and came to the conclusion that the Russians did not provide any evidence or documents in their publications to support their thesis. Moreover, the fact-checkers were unable to identify the characters in the video. That is, probable military prisoners of war. They suggest that the videos could have been compiled and passed off as Ukrainian prisoners. Or the occupiers forced the Ukrainian military to lie, blackmailing them in any way. After all, Russia can use prisoners of war for its own political purposes. For example, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry condemned such actions by Russia.

Read what is happening to Ukrainian soldiers behind the walls of Russian prisons in the Human Rights Media Initiative. Because intimidation, constant terror and blackmail are the actions of the Russians towards Ukrainian captives.

By the way, Pharmabiotest is a real laboratory where experiments are carried out. However, on the website of the State Expert Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine there is a list of all possible experiments conducted by different clinics. Therefore, Pharmbiotest conducted studies on the bioavailability of drugs such as Adesin, Tenzocard, Klovask, etc. All these names are common drugs. There is no mention of vaccine testing on the clinic's website. That is, propagandists threw in information without confirmation.

Environmental control (Milieu control) is a tactic that involves the influence of a social group on a person so that, as a result of social pressure, he or she changes their beliefs, values and begins to act, think or behave in a certain way. The term was popularized by American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton. He noted that various tools, in particular specialized language and slang, can be used to isolate members from the rest of society and deepen connections with a group of people.

Russian propagandists widely use environmental control tactics in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. The occupiers are trying to isolate local residents of the occupied regions by limiting access to the Internet, Ukrainian media and television, mobile communications, and in some cases, even turning off Russian communications and the Internet. Almost the only source of information remains Russian television, which broadcasts Kremlin narratives around the clock, and the group of people who find themselves in the occupied city also do not have access to information externally.

For example, after the liberation of Kupiansk by Ukrainian troops, a group of people from other temporarily occupied cities picked up Russian disinformation that the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly drove over Russian teachers in tanks, whom the occupiers brought from Russia to brainwash Ukrainian children. Such messages were distributed in local telegram channels, rumors were transmitted orally and repeated many times. And since the search for alternative sources of information in the temporarily occupied territories is impossible or requires significant effort, people were subjected to social pressure (after all, this is what the social group thinks, and the information was repeated by several sources, which created the effect of objectivity) and began to believe in fakes. Therefore, some people might have fear that when the Ukrainian army comes to de-occupy their city, it will commit the same crimes.

As for the use of a common language that helps identify members of a social group, Russian propaganda uses newspeak - inventing new words and phrases, redefining existing terms. The Russians launch missile attacks on civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, hospitals, schools and kindergartens, but broadcast that they are targeting “decision-making centers” - supposedly the location of the Ukrainian military. Hiding behind this term, Russia is trying to normalize the shelling of Ukrainian territory (even if these are military targets) and hide the murder of Ukrainian civilians. By picking up the newspeak, residents of the temporarily occupied territories not only identify their own kind, but are also influenced by Russian narratives. They begin to think that Russia is only hitting the “decision-making center” and is not doing anything wrong. The use of a newspeak unites these people into a certain social group, which then puts pressure, in conditions of information isolation, on Ukrainians who have the opposite opinion.