Since 2014, Russia, having violated its obligations to Ukraine, which were recorded in the Budapest Memorandum, has been lying at all costs about why it should not fulfill them. Andriy Bilousov, deputy head of the Russian delegation, voiced yet another lie at the Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). He stated that the accusations against Russia in violation of the Budapest Memorandum are "untenable" because "Russia's opponents have repeatedly disrespected the fundamental norms of international law, the principles of the UN and the OSCE." For example, they "bombed Belgrade" and recognized Kosovo. The Budapest Memorandum spells out the obligations of the guarantors - Great Britain, the USA, and Russia - regarding Ukraine. Here they are 1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America confirm to Ukraine their commitment to the principles of the OSCE Final Act to respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine. 2. ...reaffirm their commitment to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except for self-defense or otherwise by the Charter of the United Nations. 3. ...confirm to Ukraine their obligation by the principles of the OSCE Final Act to refrain from economic pressure aimed at subjugating Ukraine's exercise of the rights inherent in its sovereignty to its interests, and thus obtaining any advantages. 4. ...confirm their commitment to seek immediate action from the UN Security Council to assist Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine becomes the victim of an act of aggression or the object of threat aggression with the use of nuclear weapons. 5. ...confirm Ukraine their obligation not to use nuclear weapons against any state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons that does not possess nuclear weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories, or their dependent territories, their armed forces or their allies by such a state jointly or in alliance with a nuclear-weapon state. None of these points has any bearing on what, how, and where signatory countries have done or may do anywhere else in the world. Therefore, of course, the statements of Russian representatives regarding their own "innocence" are another lie. In addition, it is sustained in the spirit of "the fool himself." Read about the fact that this is a common format of Russian propaganda here. 

Anonymous Telegram channels controlled by Russia's GRU, such as "Resident" and "Legitimny", are spreading the message that supposedly "Western instructors" recommended the Office of the President not to use prohibited types of weapons during the war for Donbas. The report says that the use of anti-personnel landmines in Donetsk "creates a negative image of the Armed Forces" among the population and makes it possible to accuse the Armed Forces of war crimes.

The message, presented as if it were an insider from the President's Office, aims to convince readers that the use of "petal mines" by the Armed Forces of Ukraine is a proven fact, and now the OP must deal with the consequences of this "strategic mistake." But there is no proof that the Armed Forces used these anti-personnel mines in Donetsk, but Russian propaganda constantly writes about it.

On the contrary, there is a lot of evidence that it is the Russian army that violates all the norms and laws of warfare and regularly uses prohibited weapons. And during the war with Ukraine, and earlier - in Georgia and Chechnya. Ukraine also had stockpiles of antipersonnel mines but joined the Ottawa Treaty banning their use and is systematically destroying its arsenal. On the other hand, Russia has not signed any document from the Ottawa Treaty, and still uses anti-personnel mines during the wars it is waging.

The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that the SSU is preparing a punitive operation against citizens loyal to Russia in Kharkiv, under the guise of "clearing the city of artillery and aviation correctors." Also, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a whole list of what the SSU can detain Ukrainian citizens. These are the presence of calls and SMS to Russian numbers, correspondence in messengers condemning the current Ukrainian authorities, subscriptions to Russian channels on social networks, and photo or video materials of the results of impressions of Ukrainian military facilities. People who are loyal to Russia are threatened with torture and threats to the lives of relatives and friends. Also, the Russian Ministry of Defense reports that similar punitive operations have already taken place in other cities - Odesa, Mykolaiv, Sloviansk, Sumy, Chernihiv, and several other settlements.

There is no confirmation of any punitive operations in any of these cities by any Ukrainian security forces. Part of the message of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation looks like a description of the SSU's work to identify collaborators and real correctors. Part of it is a warning to its agents about what needs to be urgently removed from the phones in order not to be exposed by the agents, writes the Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center. And it may also aim to sow panic among Kharkiv residents, who, for example, subscribe to local publications that regularly publish photos and videos of "arrivals".

Fire adjusters or those who pass other important information to the Russians are regularly detained in Ukraine. But neither relatives nor relatives of people convicted of these crimes came forward with statements about illegal actions against them. Did the criminals themselves also not complain about the use of force or any illegal actions of the investigators? Instead, full-fledged punitive operations against the civilian population, including pro-Ukrainian activists or representatives of the Ukrainian government, were conducted and are being conducted. Russian troops. Ukrainians are stolen, tortured, killed, and disappear en masse. At any Russian checkpoints, mobile phones and correspondence are checked, after which people are sent to filtration camps.

These messages may also be aimed at spreading the opinion among Ukrainians that many citizens are "loyal" to Russia. But a sociological study 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 even in the territory occupied after February 24, 2022 - 82% - have a negative attitude towards Russia.

The Russian media is mass spreading the news that an alleged Ukrainian from Kyiv is selling two American Switchblade-300 drones on the darknet. But this is another fake.

Researchers at StopFake analyzed images of drones purportedly for sale and found that they were downed or damaged in 2015 and 2016 in Syria. Their images are taken from a discussion on resources that wrote about the war in Syria.

Such fake ads for the sale of arms are part of the disinformation promoted by Russian propaganda to convince Western allies to stop supplying arms to Ukraine. Its main thesis is as follows: weapons supplied by the West do not go to the front, but are sold and smuggled back to Europe or transported to the countries of the Middle East to militants of terrorist groups. Some of this disinformation even reaches the respectable Western mass media - recently the CBS channel showed the film "Arming Ukraine", where it was claimed that the vast majority of weapons provided by the West do not reach the front. After the publicity, the channel stopped showing the film and apologized, and plans to update the material.

Russian media are spreading information that a foreign journalist is allegedly conducting an "independent" investigation into the deaths of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Olenivka. As the Russian publication Insider writes, NTV has already shown material about "independent journalist Adrian Boke", who is "one of the few who tells the truth about Donbas to the world". He was also introduced as an expert in war crimes investigations.

Boke is neither a journalist nor an expert. He is a former military man who lied too much during his service in the French army. The French publication Liberation wrote about it. He visited Ukraine from the beginning of the great war under the guise of a volunteer, and then went to Europe to tell that "Bucha is a stage" and that he is a witness to "crimes by the Nazis from Azov." The StopFake publication conducted its investigation of Boke's visit to Ukraine, he did not provide any evidence of "crimes" to anyone; I was simply not physically in Buchi; does not understand Ukrainian or Russian, so he could hardly understand what his "friends from Azov" were talking about. With whom he seemed to befriend as much as two days of his stay in Lviv.

His lies were repeatedly refuted by journalists of various publications, but Russian propaganda continues to use him. This time he has already announced that he has "evidence" that it was a Ukrainian missile that hit the POW camp.

Bokeh is another example of how Russian propaganda works: it constantly uses supposedly foreign journalists to spread its messages to a Western audience.

The Russian media spread the news: that Europe will force Ukraine to cede territories and satisfy the Kremlin's demands for further cooperation in Europe and the preservation of peace. They refer to an article by the Italian diplomat, ex-deputy of Josep Borrell, Natalie Tocci, which was published in Foreign Policy.

But this is a manipulation that StopFake drew attention to. Tocci did write an article about whether Putin will be able to split the unity of the EU by taking advantage of the forced lull in Donbas. And will he be able to win some of the country's governments over to his side by blackmailing them with gas and pretending to agree to cease hostilities for the sake of European voters? Tocci insists that Putin could consider such a scenario and there are risks of a split in the EU's position on supporting Ukraine, so he strongly insists that any talks with Putin will only increase the number of casualties and prolong the war, not end it.

The Russian media took Tocci's phrase out of context, where it describes Putin's desired scenario - and is now spreading it as evidence of a change in the EU's position on the war in Ukraine. This is a common message that is constantly promoted by Russian propaganda at the beginning of the war: the EU will soon tire of the war in Ukraine, it is weak, not united, and the Europeans do not like paying a high price for energy sources - that is why they will "hand over" Ukraine to the aggressor. In fact, to date, the EU's position on supporting Ukraine remains unchanged.