On May 8th, Volodymyr Zelenskyi signed a decree on celebrating Europe Day in Ukraine on May 9th. The Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in World War II is proposed to be celebrated on May 8th. Against the backdrop of these changes, many disinformation messages were circulated in pro-Russian anonymous telegram channels, with the help of which Russia imposes its own interpretation of events on the audience. Analysts of Detector Media have identified the most common of them.

1. Zelenskyi gave back Victory Day to Russia, although the Ukrainians are the victorious people. 

Indeed, the Ukrainians fought against Nazism as part of different armies of the world, because they were a stateless people. More than 7 million Ukrainians fought the Third Reich in the Red Army. In addition, they fought in the armies of the United States, Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Canada and other countries. That is why the authorities proposed to celebrate the Day of Remembrance and victory over Nazism together with the rest of the world. However, this does not mean that Ukraine is abandoning the role of the winner altogether, as anonymous telegrams are trying to convince the audience, reinforcing the recurring propaganda narrative that “Ukrainians are Nazis”, because they are abandoning the so-called Victory Day over this phenomenon. This decision only means that now Ukraine will celebrate Remembrance Day on May 8th, like most countries of the world.

2. There is no point in celebrating Europe Day because the European countries surrendered to the Nazis or were their allies.

In fact, even in the countries occupied by Germany and the allied states, there was a powerful resistance movement against the Nazis. Moreover, such states as Czechoslovakia and Poland, although they were under occupation, had their own military formations as part of the armies of other countries. For example, people from Transcarpathia, who at that time were citizens of Czechoslovakia, in 1943 made up the majority in the First Separate Czechoslovak Brigade. This unit fought against the Nazis as part of the Red Army and distinguished itself in the battles for the liberation of Kharkiv and the Kyiv offensive. As for the struggle against Nazism in European countries, we should mention the Warsaw Uprising, the Slovak National Uprising, the Resistance Movement in France, etc. That is, Europe also fought against Nazism. By spreading such messages, anonymous telegram channels are trying to discredit European allies by outlining their historical past to the Ukrainian audience. Thus, propaganda theses are being promoted that only the “fraternal Russian people”, without the help of Europe, together with the Ukrainians defeated Nazism.

3. Ukraine refused May 9 to please Western partners.

With this message, anonymous users of social networks are promoting the thesis of Russian propaganda that Ukraine is a puppet of the West in order to deprive Ukraine of legitimacy and sovereignty in decision-making in the eyes of propaganda consumers. In fact, the celebration of Europe Day was synchronized with this holiday in the EU countries, and the celebration of the Day of Remembrance and Victory will also take place along with Europe.

4. The authorities will ban Ukrainians from bringing flowers to the monuments to those who died in World War II. For this one can get a prison sentence.

In fact, according to the law on decommunization, honoring the memory of those who died in World War II, laying flowers at monuments or taking to the streets of veterans with medals (which anonymous telegrams were also noted) is not considered a crime. Only the public display of Nazi and communist totalitarian symbols is punished. At the same time, these symbols are not considered prohibited if they are placed on state awards, commemorative medals and other awards that were awarded before 1991 and during 1991-2015 in connection with the anniversary of the events of World War II. Anonymous telegram channels spread such messages in order to intimidate the audience and discredit Ukraine, identifying it with totalitarian states.

American media spreading pro-Russian rhetoric claim that Russian President Volodymyr Putin allegedly banned oil exports to the United States and that has already led to the destruction of the American economy. It's fake.

The fact-checkers of USA TODAY paid attention to the message. They note that Putin has nothing to ban in this situation, since the US banned the import of Russian oil, natural gas and coal as early as 2022. In addition, there is no information about retaliatory steps on the part of Putin.

Fact-checkers of the publication note that although the United States consumes more oil than it produces, they do not depend on Russian oil to the extent that this would greatly affect the American economy. In 2021, only 3% of all crude oil imported into the US came from Russia, according to The Wall Street Journal.

By using such messages, propagandists want to create the illusion that the fate of the West is in the hands of Russia and that without it, it falls to pieces. In particular, in propaganda media one can often see messages according to which the European Union and NATO are about to fall apart. All this is done in order to distract the world from the problems of Russia.

Propagandists are spreading the message that the United States lied about the leaks of the Kremlin's plans for the Baltic countries. They claim that the US did this to divert attention from leaking documents from the Pentagon. It is the States that allegedly catch up with russophobic hysteria in the Baltic countries.

Analysts of the EUvsDisinfo project drew attention to the message. They note that this is the reaction of propagandists to the investigation by LRT, Delfi Estonia, Expressen, Center Dossier, Kyiv Independent, NDR, Frontstory.pl, Suddeutsche Zeitung, VSquare, WDR, Yahoo News and Re: Baltica. The journalists of these media found out that Russian officials are planning to increase their influence in the Baltic countries through various strategies. The plans were created even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Resource analysts note that there is no evidence that the United States is behind the leak of information used in the investigation. In addition, in their opinion, there is no logical reason in the United States to divert attention from the showers of documents from the Pentagon, since the suspect in the case has already been arrested.

Thus, propagandists want to shift the responsibility for the crimes of the Russians to the “collective West”. They say that Ukraine is not enough for him, now he is “rocking” the Baltics too. In addition, Russian propaganda portrays the Baltic countries as “puppets of the West” using this message.

The propagandists are spreading the message that the “Kyiv regime” allegedly seeks to gather around itself the Nazi elite, and the only way to fight it is to destroy all the military and military equipment used in the counteroffensive. In addition, propagandists openly call for the overthrow of the Ukrainian authorities for the above reasons.

Analysts of the EUvsDisinfo project drew attention to the message. They noticed that the message is indeed repeated regularly in Russian propaganda media. The myth of “Nazi Ukraine” has been at the heart of Russian disinformation since 2013-2014, when they tried to discredit Euromaidan protesters in this way. In fact, right-wing groups did not gain much popularity either during Euromaidan or during the 2019 parliamentary elections.

In addition, in 2015 Ukraine passed a law condemning Nazi and communist ideology. The law prohibits the public use and promotion of Nazi and communist symbols.

Thus, the propagandists want to justify the crimes of the Russians. Like, Russia protects the world from the invasion of neo-Nazism. However, according to EUvsDisinfo analysts, right-wing groups do not have significant political or social influence in Ukraine.

According to the definition of propaganda, everything that contradicts Moscow's “policy” is regarded as “extremism”. Like, the actions of some radical Russians are aimed at inciting the public. Accordingly, all extremists must be punished.

There are four “extremist” articles in the Russian Criminal Code: one of which appeared in 2014 after the Russian occupation of Crimea. According to the conclusions of law enforcement agencies, Russians cannot call for separatism, that is, criticize the government or its actions. So, the Russian branch of the BBC in its material gives an example when in Odnoklassniki a Russian liked a post with the wishes of death and shame to the Russians who are going to fight in the Donbas. And a criminal case was opened against him on charges of “hatred on a national basis”. This is not the only case of combating extremism. According to statistics from Russia's Supreme Court, 693 people were convicted of extremism last year. Further, they did not explain what crimes the Russians were tried for.

Of course, the Russian authorities exaggerate their powers and regard as “extremism” almost everything that they simply do not like. Even according to the findings of the analytical centers Sova or Ahora, the actions of Russians in social networks are monitored by law enforcement agencies. For example, the administration of the social network VKontakte is actively cooperating with the investigating authorities, revealing user data, their addresses, phone numbers, time of access to the network, etc. That is, this is a deliberate restriction of freedom of speech, and by no means a protection of Russians from radical people. Russians call extremism any disagreement with the government, with its actions and deeds. Allegedly, all the actions of Russia are exclusively true and not subject to condemnation.

Propagandists are spreading information that the head of the US General Staff, General Mark Milley, accidentally praised Russia for “successes” in the beginning of the “special military operation”. Like, he said that Russia was striving to advance into Dnipro, and thus he accidentally praised the Russian army for its professionalism. It's fake.

Analysts of the StopFake project drew attention to it. In fact, the American general did not say that about the Russian army. On the contrary, in an interview for Foreign Affairs, he stated that in a very short time, Russia did not achieve its strategic goals and could not achieve what it wanted militarily.

Propagandists constantly resort to distorting interviews with Western media people to fit their own messages. In this way, they want to show that the support of the West is not real and that in fact it recognizes the victory of Russia. But in fact, the pace of support from the West continues to grow.

The press service of the Ministry of Infrastructure reported that the Russians are attacking an online service for booking a border crossing for the eCherha (online waiting list) transport. Russian propaganda channels are calling for a cyberattack.

The Ministry notes that the system is now working without failures, however, in case of changes, they promise to inform drivers and carriers, they promise to inform them promptly. The department assures that the personal data of drivers and data of vehicles registered in the system are protected and cannot be accessed by unauthorized persons even in the event of cyber attacks.

Russians often resort to cyberattacks on Ukrainian web pages or services, and the attacks are coordinated through Russian propaganda channels on social networks.