Russian propaganda sources are distributing a photo of a fake announcement about the evacuation of stray dogs in Sumy. The reason given is the “threat of North Korean occupiers”.

However, the Sumy City Council did not publish such information either on the website or in social networks. In addition, the ad does not contain any information about the organization that could be involved in the evacuation of dogs. As for the contacts where they advised to contact, there is a blurred QR code for a bot on Telegram, a hotline for the Sumy City Council and the Cabinet of Ministers. So the ad is a fake, and VoxCheck reports this.

In Sumy, no evacuation was announced for either citizens or dogs. Thus, Russian propagandists are trying to sow panic due to the possible direct entry of North Korea into the Russian-Ukrainian war.

Read on Censor.NET: Dogs are allegedly being mobilized in Ukraine.

A supposed advertisement from the Ukrainian Women's Watch organization is being distributed in the pro-Russian segment of social networks, which talks about military training courses for women. The “advertising banner” shows a woman in a military uniform and in the background is a photo of a monkey sitting behind the wheel of a car. And the slogan is: “Women's two-week military assistance courses - even a macaque can be taught to drive!”

However, this advertisement is not real. We checked the image from the Telegram channel using a special tool FotoForensics, which establishes the fact of interference in the image. For example, Photoshop or other photo or video editors. Therefore, it was possible to establish that the photo distributed by the propagandists contains signs of editing. Moreover, no Ukrainian media published such an advertisement. Just like on the organization's website, we did not find any information about such an advertisement.

Women in armed conflicts are one of the most vulnerable social groups. Some researchers call Russian aggression a war for gender order, a gendered confrontation, because Moscow is fighting for so-called traditional values, which imply the triumph of patriarchal practices and the leveling of gender equality. Hostile propagandists depicts a dissolute and full of feminists, prostitutes and the emasculation of the “true male essence”. Ukraine, according to propagandists, was once part of the famous “Russian Gothic”, but, having become Europeanized, adopted the destructive practices of gender equality.

Read our study on the Russian dimension of Russian misogyny: The shell of a femina with black content. How Russian propaganda is trying to discredit Ukrainian women.

The news was spread on social networks, in particular on the propaganda Telegram channel Niezależny Dziennik Polityczny, citing the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform. The fake news states that 500 volunteers have been recruited for the Ukrainian Legion, which is being formed in Poland, but there is not a single Ukrainian among them.

“Ukraine needs to quickly gather enough people to form a battalion. Ukraine is doing everything to recruit foreigners to fight”, the propaganda correspondence said.

However, the fake news repeated the context of the news. In fact, the point is that as of early November, more than 500 applications from 30 countries had been submitted to the Ukrainian Legion, a military unit that is currently being formed in Poland among Ukrainian volunteers living abroad. In fact, the decision to create the Ukrainian Legion, which will be prepared with the assistance and support of the Polish Ministry of Defense, was announced following the signing of a security agreement between Ukraine and Poland on July 8 in Warsaw.

That is, only Ukrainian volunteers living abroad are signing up for this unit. There is no talk of any “recruitment of foreigners”.

Russian propaganda systematically feeds the narrative that professional military personnel from other countries are fighting in Ukraine — so-called foreign mercenaries.  In this way, Russian propaganda also tries to justify the failures of the Russian army. They say that they are not fighting weak Ukrainians, but “specially trained NATO soldiers” or Americans. Moreover, Russian propaganda throws in such fakes to show that there is no one left to fight in Ukraine and they are recruiting “anyone in sight”.

By the way, in our Newspeak column we reported that it is Russia that is recruiting mercenaries, in particular Wagner representatives. This is essentially a terrorist organization within the Russian army.

Let us recall that Niezależny Dziennik Polityczny is a fake resource created solely to spread propaganda messages that are beneficial to Russia.

Read also: The lie that Polish media reports about half a million fallen Ukrainian soldiers.