A pro-Russian Moldovan Telegram channel writes that Ukraine is “a testing ground not only for conventional, intelligent and unmanned weapons”. Wounded Ukrainian soldiers are also allegedly transported to Europe as biomaterial for studying the effects of modern weapons on humans and for testing new types of viruses and bacteria that are more resistant to antibiotics. In reporting this, the propagandists partly refer to the material of the British publication The Times.

In fact, the propagandists manipulated an article in The Times titled: “Ukraine war highlights mutated superbugs that can resist antibiotics”. The text tells of the case of a Ukrainian soldier whose leg was amputated at St George’s Hospital in London because antibiotics could not cure his infection, as the bacteria were resistant to all classes of antibiotics. However, the propagandists’ claims that Ukrainian servicemen are being transported to Europe to test new types of viruses and bacteria are unfounded.

At the same time, The Times writes that this is not just a crisis of war zones and distant lands. In 2022, more than 58,000 people in England were infected with an antibiotic-resistant infection, up 4% from the previous year. Moreover, almost 8,000 people die from such infections in the UK every year.

With this message, propagandists feed the narrative about Western biological laboratories in Ukraine. As part of this disinformation campaign, we recorded a number of such leaks. For example, we wrote about the spread of a fake about the invasion of poisonous spiders from American biological laboratories in Ukraine.

Ukrainian and Russian media have spread information about a forest fire in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. Propagandists picked up on this news and used it to frighten Western audiences, saying that Ukraine is threatening the world with nuclear contamination, since radioactive particles from Ukraine are already moving to Poland. However, this is a fake, journalists from the StopFake project write.

Indeed, on September 3, 2024, the forest litter caught fire in the exclusion zone. As of September 9, the fire is still being extinguished. “Currently, 399 rescuers, 103 units of equipment from the State Emergency Service, brought in from different parts of Ukraine, as well as 17 units of equipment from the forestry service are working at the site”, the State Emergency Service said on a Telegram today.

However, the radiation background in the exclusion zone is normal: control over radiation indicators has been strengthened in the country, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine notes. The automated radiation control system carries out continuous monitoring at 39 points, transmitting data to the control center every hour, and in emergency situations - every minute. The radiation background is also monitored by the operational radiation reconnaissance group of the Ecocenter State Enterprise. All characteristics of the radiation background are normal.

The Kyiv City State Administration also does not record any deviations from the norm. As of today, September 9, the level of air pollution in the capital is low, and the radiation background throughout the city is normal.

The Ukrainian data is confirmed by the independent Czech weather monitoring resource Windy. According to the interactive map, which operates in real time, the main parameters of air pollution in Ukraine, as well as the background level, are within acceptable limits. There are no ‘radioactive clouds’ over Ukraine.

With this fake, the Russians are trying to discredit Ukraine, claiming that it poses a threat of nuclear pollution to the world. The goal of such statements is to force partner countries to abandon Ukraine and leave it without any help in the war against Russia.

We have recently recorded a similar Russian fake. Then the propagandists wrote that there was a release of radioactive elements at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and the cloud was moving towards Kyiv.

The pro-Kremlin media spread the ‘news’ that the attack on the Poltava Institute of Communications was successful thanks to information passed to Russian intelligence by the Ukrainian military themselves. The propagandists claim that Forbes wrote about this: “The publication notes that the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces pays well for such services. Thus, a fee of up to 500 thousand dollars was allegedly paid for information about Poltava”.

However, this information is not true. This is reported in the StopFake project. In the Ukrainian and English versions of Forbes, apart from the news about the Russian attack on the Institute of Communications in Poltava, no other materials on this topic were published. Also, in the Russian version of the magazine there is no corresponding ‘news’.

The propaganda resources that spread this disinformation did not provide any links to supporting materials. No other authoritative media published this ‘news’, although such information would have been immediately picked up by many sources, because any information about spotters, collaborators immediately appears in the Ukrainian news. For example, about the spotter of the Kharkiv military administration, who was sentenced to life imprisonment.

That is, this is another invention of the Russians, in which they used the brand of a famous magazine to make the fake more credible.

On September 3, 2024, Russia launched a missile attack on the Poltava Military Communications Institute and a hospital located nearby. According to official data, 55 people were killed and more than 320 were injured as a result of the ballistic missile strikes.

Russian Telegram channels are distributing photos of ATMs with images of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi pasted on them with the caption “I eat your taxes!”. In the corresponding messages, propagandists claim that the photos were taken in the center of Barcelona (Spain).

The Center for Countering Disinformation, after verifying this information at the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the Consulate General of Ukraine in Barcelona, reported that this was a Russian-ordered campaign. They took several photos and began distributing disinformation material about Volodymyr Zelenskyi. At the same time, the campaign did not become widespread.

The Center for Countering Disinformation adds that Russia is distributing such fakes as part of the “Black Hole” information campaign, the results of which can be found here.

Earlier, Russian propagandists distributed photos of leaflets with the image of the Ukrainian president asking for money in different languages of the world.

Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels are distributing a video that allegedly shows the Ukrainian military abusing captured Russian soldiers in the Kursk region. The footage shows several tied-up men in Russian military uniforms. The video also shows a Ukrainian soldier torturing one of the men, who is tied to a metal chair, with electric shocks.

The Center for Countering Disinformation conducted a study on the distribution of this video and found out that a number of Russian “war correspondents” received an offer to publish it from anonymous users in private messages. However, due to the obviously staged nature of the video, even the most dedicated propagandists refused to post this fake on their resources and ridiculed it, the Center adds. As a result, only low-rated resources published the video of the “torture of Russian prisoners”.

With this fake video material, the Russians are trying to accuse the Ukrainian Armed Forces of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law during the Kursk operation. Russian propaganda also creates similar staged videos to intimidate their own military so that they do not surrender.

We have already documented Russian video fakes involving Ukrainian soldiers on numerous occasions. We previously analyzed a similar video fake in which Ukrainian soldiers allegedly shot Russians who wanted to surrender.