The Kremlin media spread this "news" regarding Yevhen Balytskyi, a deputy of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council from the "Opposition Bloc" party, who went over to the side of the Russian occupiers. The Russians appointed a Zaporizhzhia collaborator as the so-called "head of the temporary civil administration" in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region. Remind you that it is a fictitious authority and "position," and they have nothing to do with the official Ukrainian authorities in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Today, the Zaporizhzhia region has real problems with the gas supply, without which, as of July 8, 101,768 subscribers in 137 settlements of the region are without it. 48 settlements of Berdyansk and Melitopol districts remain disconnected from gas supply due to damage to the main gas pipeline in the Donetsk region.

On July 7, the gas supply to 26 settlements (16,760 consumers) in Vasylivskyi and Pologivskyi districts was wholly cut off due to damage to the main gas pipeline. But this happened not because Kyiv cut off the gas supply to the Zaporizhzhia region. Still, because of hostilities on the part of the Russians, the occupation of part of the territory, and the refusal of the regional utility workers to carry out emergency restoration work at the damaged sites due to enemy shelling, the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration reported.    

This message was spread by several Russian propaganda media, including TARS, Life, EADaily, RIA Novosti, OSN, Fifth Channel, and others. According to Stopfake fact-checkers, the propagandists refer to an interview of Vitaliy Ganchev, a Kharkiv collaborator appointed by the Russian occupation authorities as the so-called "head of the temporary civil administration" in the occupied part of the Kharkiv region.

No authorities of the Kharkiv region have made statements about the region's desire to join Russia. The Russian mass media spread the quote only by supporting the occupiers, a collaborator, Vitaliy Ganchev. The Russian authorities appointed him "the head of the temporary civil administration of the Kharkiv region." However, it is a fictitious body, just like the "position," and they have nothing to do with the official Ukrainian authorities. Vitaliy Ganchev is accused of treason and collaborative activity (Part 2 of Article 111, Part 5 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) - on April 21, the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office notified him of the suspicion in absentia. The press service of the prosecutor's office reports that the man voluntarily went to cooperate with the occupiers.

The statement that residents of the occupied part of the Kharkiv region want to join Russia has no factual basis. The head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, Oleg Synegubov, reported at the beginning of July that the occupiers temporarily control approximately 30% of the region's territory - part of the border areas in the north and the eastern provinces from Volchansk to Izyum. After a part of the region was occupied at the beginning of spring, people wanted to leave the territories temporarily under the control of the Russians and return to the cities under the supervision of Ukraine, Kharkiv RSA reports.

A recent sociological survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), which was conducted on May 13-18, 2022, showed that the absolute majority of citizens who continue to live in the occupied territory after February 24, 2022 - 82% - have a negative attitude towards Russia and only 6% have a positive attitude.    

It was announced on July 8 by the head of the Russian National Defense Management Center, Colonel-General Mykhaylo Mizintsev. According to him, the operation will be aimed at identifying and further public repression of residents who are dissatisfied with the politics of Kyiv and generally pro-Russian residents of Mykolaiv and the region. Allegedly, SSU employees and up to 500 fighters of the Nazi battalion "Tsunami" were transferred from Kyiv, Odesa, and Lviv to Mykolaiv to carry out this operation.

The Ministry of Defense of Russia dispelled a similar fake in April. At that time, Russian propagandists invented that the territorial defense was already carrying out punitive raids to detect any signs of pro-Russian views among residents.

The Center for Combating Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine emphasizes that it is false.

In the spring, the head of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration, Vitaliy Kim, answered a question about pro-Russian sentiment in the city: "in Mykolaiv, there are those who showed their love for Russia solely to achieve their political goals, in fact, a tiny percentage were ideologically for Russia. Now all forces have united in the city, and pro-Russian narratives are a thing of the past."