This information was disseminated on anonymous telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. The reports say how, after the resignation of the already former Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov, he was allegedly spotted on a yacht in a European town. Anonymous telegrams convinced that the ex-minister was sent on vacation for “taxpayers’ money”, and he was profiting from the Ukrainians. Photo evidence is added to publications and summarized. However, this is a lie.

StopFake project specialists were able to analyze the case and found out that the photo of Oleksii Reznikov’s vacation actually exists, but it was created back in 2020. Then, on his pages on social networks, in particular on Facebook, the official announced his  engagement. Moreover, only in the Russian segment of social networks this photo was distributed with the caption about “rest after retirement”. That is, the photo dated 2020 has no relation to the present day. The authors of the false publication simply used an old photo to create a fake story.

Thus, Russian agitprop cultivates hatred of the Ukrainian leadership, which completely allows officials of various kinds to “relax for the money of Ukrainians”. And it is precisely such actions on the part of the Ukrainian authorities that give rise to corruption - since allegedly after the official’s resignation, his trip was financed. So, by spreading such fakes, propagandists also want to show that corruption in Ukraine allegedly cannot be corrected, so it will not be accepted into the EU or NATO.

By the way, you may also read the story about how Zelenskyi allegedly travels to Poland on the “golden train”.

Clichés without gist are short, commonly used phrases that are supposed to alleviate cognitive dissonance and break critical thinking. It is used to stop arguments, discussions, to move away from difficult issues, or to turn attention to other things.

American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton coined this term in his book Brainwashing Technology: The Psychology of Totalitarianism to describe the language used by the Chinese Communist Party as “the beginning and end of any ideological analysis”. The Chinese government used clichés without gist to prevent people from questioning the party's actions and prevent dissent or rebellion.Lifton explained that by using these phrases, interlocutors “disrupt the conversation and prevent people from thinking deeper about important issues”.

This method of propaganda was used in both the Soviet Union (which inspired George Orwell to write 1984) and modern Russia to impose conformity on people, to compress the most complex and serious problems into short, simplified and clear phrases with which to end an unpleasant conversation. During a full-scale invasion, the use of clichés is actively used by Russians who support Putin and the war against Ukraine and by Ukrainians who are influenced by Russian propaganda.

Examples:

- “We will never know the whole truth”, “everything is not so simple” - clichés used as an answer to any real fact. An example of practical application can be seen during large-scale Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities, when Russian propaganda creates opposing versions of the incident (for example, a missile attack on Chernihiv), causing cognitive dissonance. A person under the influence of propaganda and in order to avoid cognitive dissonance will not try to find a truthful version of reality.

— “Life will put everything in its place” — a response to evidence of crimes committed by Russians in Ukraine. This cliché negates any possibility of discussion, because a person does not perceive facts and arguments, and does not want to think about the problems being discussed.

- “Where have you been for eight years?”, “Kyiv regime”, “Ukrainians are Nazis” - these clichés are used to redirect attention to an inconvenient issue, that is, “turning the tables” on the fictional shortcomings of opponents.

- “This won’t change anything”, “I’m out of politics” - is used to reject a person’s participation in some matter, as if the person is insignificant and nothing depends on his or her actions. With this phrase, Russians answered the question why they did not go out to rallies after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

— “Politicians want to quarrel us” is the answer of people who are trying to dissociate themselves, to remove collective responsibility for the actions of Russians or for missile strikes, shelling of infrastructure and the death of Ukrainians as a result of their actions.

Such information was disseminated on social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that graffiti with “anti-Ukrainian overtones” was painted on a residential building in Berlin. According to the authors of the fake message, graffiti depicting Volodymyr Zelenskyi eating the hand of a Ukrainian fighter. The hand itself is torn from the body and a Ukrainian chevron is depicted on it. And the inscription on Zelenskyi’s figure is cannibal. The authors refer to a number of German publications, in particular the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper and the national broadcaster Deutsche Welle, and add screenshots of supposedly news from the official pages of the publications. However, this is not true.

StopFake fact-checkers began to analyze this case and found out that such graffiti does not exist. But the German media did not come out with similar news and no mention of “Zelenskyi the cannibal” was found. Accordingly, propagandists used image editors to create images of graffiti. Experts also verified the authenticity of screenshots from fake publications - “news” on the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung website and “story” on the official Instagram account of Deutsche Welle with a photograph of graffiti. Thus, the compilation of photographs is indicated by numerous errors in the design of the German-language text. For example, propagandists wrote “Zelensky” and “Zelinsky”, although according to the German-Ukrainian transliteration the sound “z” is rendered by the letter “s”. Not all German-language publications adhere to these rules, but the Allgemeine Zeitung media workers use the “Selenskyi” form in their materials. On the contrary, Deutsche Welle resorts to international transliteration and is indicated as “Zelenskyy”. But they definitely don’t write like in the previous fake versions.

Regarding the publication of stories in Deutsche Welle, no information about “graffiti” was found on the website or other resources. It is most likely that this story was also made using Photoshop, since the same screenshot is constantly distributed in the Russian segment of social networks: this is indicated by the time of the probable publication of the story. All screenshots indicate that the stock was published 18 hours ago.

We have repeatedly refuted fake news related to fake graffiti or covers on foreign magazines/newspapers. Thus, propagandists seek to show that their rhetoric (for example, that Zelenskyi is hated by the whole world) is also repeated in the West. So it may seem to readers that the public is really dissatisfied with Ukraine. And especially when the authors use elements of popular culture, hinting that people are laughing at the situation in Ukraine and that the Ukrainian agenda for Europe is a reason to laugh.

Read the latest fakes on this topic, where Russia turns a blind eye to false works of street art and pop culture:

It’s as if in The Hague, the capital of European justice, they created graffiti depicting Zelenskyi hanging on the gallows. 

Or look at the fake cover of the allegedly British newspaper The New European, where the Ukrainian president was sitting on the lap of the Dalai Lama. 

And about the fake cover of the numb Volodymyr Zelenskyi from the figure of the dictator Putin and Jesus Christ, read here.

On September 10, 2023, Russia held elections at various levels with by-elections of “deputies” to the State Duma and heads of a number of regions to local authorities. Elections were also held in the temporarily Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine – in parts of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Anonymous telegrams claimed that the turnout in Ukrainian regions was “high”, which means that people allegedly show great interest in the formation of Russian politics — “competitive, fair and impartial”. And they add that the expression of the will of the people testifies to the so-called legitimacy of the past elections.

Like these elections, and any previous ones, together with pseudo-referendums, these are not real elections and sometimes not the absolute expression of the will of the Ukrainian people, in particular. Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada appealed to foreign states to recognize the illegality of the elections. Among other things, they adopted resolution No. 9581 based on the results of the plenary meeting. It states that the occupation authorities are intimidating, blackmailing and forcibly involving Ukrainian citizens in elections through illegal passporting and replacing Ukrainian identification documents with Russian counterparts.

Such elections contradict the general norms of international law and violate the legislation of Ukraine. Moreover, such actions on the part of Russia, first of all, put Ukrainians in danger - after all, they are forced to vote at gunpoint. The European Union also (back in June) condemned Russia's attempts to hold pseudo-elections at the temporarily occupied territories. Then EU representative Peter Stano said that Moscow has no legal rights to the seized Ukrainian territories and that, in fact, Russia is acting arbitrarily, ignoring all norms and rights. As a result, Russia only seeks to give legitimacy to its actions, hiding behind good goals. It seems that the desire to vote and be part of Russia comes from the Ukrainians themselves. And accordingly, they are given scope for “self-determination”.

The head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration Artem Lysohor also noted that the occupation authorities have admitted the failure of their forced passportization and allow people to vote without a Russian passport. And local collaborators were allowed not to open polling stations, but to conduct voting from home.

That is, this approach to holding “elections”, on the contrary, is the result of low turnout at the polling station, the disinterest of Ukrainians in voting and resistance to the occupation authorities. However, the Kremlin is trying in every possible way to whiten itself and demonstrate “democracy” amid the widespread chaos: they even invited the so-called “foreign supervisors” who highly appreciate the work of the occupation exit polls. But those “observers” turned out to be supporters of Russia and, apparently, covered the work of the Gauleiters with bias.

Such information is disseminated on social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports describe how a Ukrainian refugee allegedly set fire to a DNA research center in California. The reason for this crime, as telegram anonymous people say, was dissatisfaction with the genetic test conducted the day before. It turned out that the man is supposedly only 7.9% ethnic Ukrainian. Video evidence is added to the publications - a story from the international television company Al Jazeera. It is not true.

Analysts of the StopFake project analyzed the case and found that the news story was compiled, but there was no such news on the official pages on social networks or on the official website. At the same time, the compiled story is distributed only in the Russian segment of social networks.

According to Russian propagandists, the Ukrainian approached the well-known 23andMe laboratory in the United States. And fact-checkers are confident that if such an incident really occurred, the American media would cover such information. But no such mentions were found in the English-language segment of social networks or Google. Experts also recorded several signs of video compilation. Among these, the video fragments used in the video actually reflect other events. So the footage actually shows the arson of a prison lobby in the United States, which occurred in June 2023. And just this story was published on the official pages of one of the American media.

By spreading this fake news, the authors seek to demonize Ukrainian refugees and allegedly show how Ukrainians despise everyone and commit crimes outside their state. Thus, Russian propaganda is trying to present Ukrainian refugees as criminals or terrorists, as a cultural and economic threat to the EU - in order to reduce support for Ukraine. We mentioned this in our own research.

But at the same time, the Kremlin is promoting the thesis of “nationalist refugees” who are ready to commit any crime for “Ukrainian blood”. After all, the very reason for the probable crime was the fact that the Ukrainian refugee was dissatisfied with the DNA test and, moreover, questioned the results. This is not the first time Moscow has turned to this interpretation of Ukrainians—aggressive, ultra-nationalist and valuing only “Ukrainian blood”. That is, they once again called Ukrainians “Nazis”.

So, read the cases where Russian propaganda instrumentalized the following issues:

This information was disseminated by Russian media. Reports say that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg allegedly confirmed that it was the North Atlantic Alliance that “started the war in Ukraine” and that Russia invaded Ukrainian territory due to “NATO expansion”. This is manipulation.

Fact-checkers of the StopFake project took up this case and found out that in fact the Secretary General did not say this, and his quote was distorted. Experts explain that the quote itself was compiled from Stoltenberg’s speech at a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament on September 7. Then he talked about the failed policy of dictator Putin, who, on the eve of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, blackmailed the Alliance and demanded that Eastern Europe be given to its sphere of influence.

We are talking, in particular, about how, at the end of 2021, the Russian Foreign Ministry demanded that Western states “stay away from Ukraine”, preventing Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. At that time, Russian “parliamentarians” sought a legal guarantee that NATO would renounce any military activities in Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

Actually, commenting on the events of the past, Stoltenberg said that Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine is in fact a strategic mistake and a dictatorial failure.

By distorting quotes from public figures, military officers, politicians and other public figures, Russian propaganda is trying to convince consumers of disinformation of the authenticity of such expressions. Like, if the military man himself said this, one can trust him, because he is an authoritative source. This is how propagandists use the tactic of appealing to authority.

Russia systematically deals with the distortion of quotes. This helps it promote its own theses, and if they are “consonant” with the statement of authority, the information acquires legitimacy in the eyes of users of anonymous telegram channels. Read the latest fake cases: