Spilnota Detector Media
Detector Media collects and documents real-time chronicles of the Kremlin disinformation about the Russian invasion. Ukraine for decades has been suffering from Kremlin disinformation. Here we document all narratives, messages, and tactics, which Russia is using from February 17th, 2022. Reminder: the increasing of shelling and fighting by militants happened on the 17th of February 2022 on the territory of Ukraine. Russian propaganda blames Ukraine for these actions.

On 24 December, on the 1034th day of the full-scale war, our editorial office recorded:

2605
Fake
776
Manipulation
753
Message
541
Disclosure
Русскій фейк, іді на***!

Disclosure State Russian media disseminated content provided by the FSB

Journalists from The New York Times analyzed the email archive of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VDTRK), broken by hackers, and found that Russian TV channels, in particular Russia 1 and Russia 24, used materials sent to them by the FSB. The entire dump has a volume of 750 gigabytes, the vast majority of which is related to preparations for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the start of the war - the correspondence took place from January to March 2022. The researchers were able to confirm the addresses of the mailboxes, as well as the faces of the people who received the letters.

As the journalists found out, Russian propagandists created content on topics that were discussed in letters from the FSB and the Russian Ministry of Defense. In the letters, the FSB representatives called the employees of the Russian channels “colleagues”. One of the materials sent by the FSB officers through Russian channels is the story of a woman who claimed that the Mariupol Drama Theater was allegedly blown up by the Ukrainian military.

In addition, in order to give viewers the impression of numerous “victories” of the Russian army and politics in general, they used materials from conservative Western media, in particular Fox News, Chinese media publications with beneficial narratives, and also used little-known accounts on Telegram and YouTube, which also made it possible to create a distorted picture of Russian “greatness”.

Message The US provides Patriot complexes to prolong the war in Ukraine

A network of telegram channels, led by Russian intelligence, is spreading the following message: it seems that the United States has volunteered to provide Ukraine with air defense, including Patriot systems, in order to prolong the war in Ukraine. It seems that this is being done so that the United States continues to earn on the supply of weapons and to continue the effect of sanctions in order to weaken the European economy.

This is another invention of Russian propaganda. Ukraine has repeatedly turned to European partners, the United States and Israel, to get modern air defense systems, especially after Russia launched massive rocket attacks on energy infrastructure. Israel refused Ukraine. Germany, after two rockets fell on the territory of Poland and two people died, offered its own “Patriots” to Poland, but Poland made a different proposal: to send the complexes to Ukraine. Finally, Germany refused after a lot of consultation and evasion. But now these complexes have been agreed to be supplied to Ukraine by the United States. America is doing this precisely on the persistent appeals of Ukraine, which wants to get the Patriot complex in order to better protect both the population and the military.

The thesis about the “prolongation” of the war is also one of the common messages of Russian propaganda, which first threatened to “seize” Ukraine in two weeks, and then came up with “the prolongation of the war by the United States” to explain its own defeats at the front.

The war has led to many consequences, including an energy crisis, and is not beneficial to Ukraine, the US, the EU, or Russia itself, which can stop it at any moment. And it is Russia that is responsible for protracting this war.

The US provides Patriot complexes to prolong the war in Ukraine.

A network of telegram channels, led by Russian intelligence, is spreading the following message: it seems that the United States has volunteered to provide Ukraine with air defense, including Patriot systems, in order to prolong the war in Ukraine. It seems that this is being done so that the United States continues to earn on the supply of weapons and to continue the effect of sanctions in order to weaken the European economy.

This is another invention of Russian propaganda. Ukraine has repeatedly turned to European partners, the United States and Israel, to get modern air defense systems, especially after Russia launched massive rocket attacks on energy infrastructure. Israel refused Ukraine. Germany, after two rockets fell on the territory of Poland and two people died, offered its own “Patriots” to Poland, but Poland made a different proposal: to send the complexes to Ukraine. Finally, Germany refused after a lot of consultation and evasion. But now these complexes have been agreed to be supplied to Ukraine by the United States. America is doing this precisely on the persistent appeals of Ukraine, which wants to get the Patriot complex in order to better protect both the population and the military.

The thesis about the “prolongation” of the war is also one of the common messages of Russian propaganda, which first threatened to “seize” Ukraine in two weeks, and then came up with “the prolongation of the war by the United States” to explain its own defeats at the front.

The war has led to many consequences, including an energy crisis, and is not beneficial to Ukraine, the US, the EU, or Russia itself, which can stop it at any moment. And it is Russia that is responsible for protracting this war.

Message The opposition to the current government is activated ahead of the elections

Telegram channels run by Russian intelligence have recently focused on Ukraine's internal political strife. They promoted the message that allegedly in Ukraine before the parliamentary elections, the opposition to the current government, which will be made up of mayors of cities and the military elite, as well as a new pro-Russian force, which will be formed by Serhii Liovochkin, will become more active. This is evidenced by the monitoring data of pro-Kremlin telegram channels, which was made by the Center for Strategic Communications.

The channels wrote about the formation of a “regional movement of mayors and military men” by the mayor of Kyiv Klychko and ex-minister of internal affairs Avakov, and the formation of a new political force by Liovochkin. They also spread the thesis about a split in the Servant of the People party about the deprivation of mandates of people's deputies from the Opposition Platform for Life. Like, it is beneficial for Yermak to keep them in the Verkhovna Rada to push through the necessary decisions. They also wrote that the Office of the President is planning repression by the SSU (Security service of Ukraine) against the mayors of cities who are forming a coalition against the central government due to the adoption of law 5655 on urban development reform. Another widely spread thesis is allegedly “non-supply of equipment and parts by the central government” to cities headed by mayors “opposing the government”. Among other things, the mayor of Dnipro Filatov was named, under whose leadership the city ‘suffers from power outages more than Zaporizhzhia, Odesa and Kharkiv’.

These messages are yet another attempt by Russian propaganda to influence support for the government and its decisions, as well as create tension in society. Previously, propagandists called for “going to rallies due to unfair blackouts” and promoted messages that “the authorities export electricity for their own enrichment, despite the fact that Ukrainians are without electricity”.

Manipulation Rallies against Ukraine were held in Germany

Russian state television broadcast a story about an alleged mass rally in Nuremberg demanding the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions and a halt to the supply of weapons to Ukraine. The same information was disseminated in pro-Russian and Russian telegram channels. But, as Insider's fact-checkers found out, the rally was organized by the “Nuremberg Human Rights Group”, which has been organizing protests every Monday for years. The main demands of these rallies over the past two years are the abolition of mandatory vaccination against coronavirus, as well as more general slogans: against “digital surveillance by the state”, against “hysterical media” and for social justice. The only slogan that could refer to the war in Ukraine is the phrase “Let's create a world without weapons! No ignition!”. But in no way does it concern either Russia or Ukraine, and even more - anti-Russian sanctions or the supply of weapons to Ukraine from Germany.

Russian propaganda is constantly trying to promote the message that Europeans do not support Ukrainians and demand that their governments stop supplying weapons to Ukraine. In fact, support for Ukraine in the EU countries has not decreased: according to a survey conducted in October-November 2022 commissioned by the European Parliament, 74% of Europeans approve of all types of support for Ukraine. In the Scandinavian countries, the approval rate is the highest - over 90%.

Fake Oleksandr Turchynov died in an accident

A number of telegram channels with the letter Z in their names have disseminated information about the accident in which the ex-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Turchynov died. This is a fake, which Turchynov himself denied.

“Don’t even wait for this”, Turchynov wrote on his Facebook.

The channels wrote that it was the “bloody pastor”, as Turchynov’s propagandists call him, who unleashed a war in Donbas. In fact, it was unleashed by Russia, starting the supply of weapons and sending its military to seize power in various cities of Donbas.

Fake Ukraine supplies electricity to Moldova

Russia has launched a disinformation campaign that aims to convince Ukrainians that Ukraine continues to export electricity to other countries, in particular, Moldova. This thesis is promoted by Russian propagandists and Ukrainian anti-vaxxer bloggers, fortune tellers and even YouTube channels of those breeding Corgis. Among those spreading a fake about the sale of electricity to Moldova is the well-known Ukrainian anti-vaccinator Ostap Stakhiv. This proves that the campaign is coordinated to work with different target audiences, writes StopFake.

In fact, turning off the electricity in Moldova, despite the statements of propagandists, does not prove that Ukraine supplies electricity to the country. Ukraine and Moldova are in a single block of regulation. This means that the systems of Moldova and Ukraine are six times more strongly interconnected than, for example, Moldova and Romania. This process of combining systems began in 2006 to make it easier for the systems of the two countries to integrate into the pan-European energy system. Moldova does not have many power generating capacities, and one of the largest producers, Moldova GRES, is located in Transnistria and is owned by the Russian Inter RAO. Until October 11 of this year, Moldova bought at least 30% of electricity from Ukraine, but Ukraine stopped deliveries and Moldova was forced to urgently conclude a contract with the same Russian power plant in Transnistria. Also, since October 13, Moldova has been buying a small part of the electricity needed from Romania. And they turn off the lights in Moldova after the shelling precisely because the systems of the two countries are connected, and when part of the system of Ukraine is turned off, Moldova is also turned off.

Propagandists also spread a fake that it seems that on the websites of various energy companies you can see that Ukraine gives electricity to other countries. This is also not true: the sites show data on non-commercial energy supply to the systems of neighboring countries. Also, these countries give such an amount of electricity to the Ukrainian system. This is done to balance the systems. You can read more about this in the article “Without light but without you”.

Orest Slyvenko, Artur Koldomasov, Vitalii Mykhailiv, Oleksandra Kotenko, Oleksandr Siedin, Kostiantyn Zadyraka, and Oleksiy Pivtorak are collaborating on this chronicle. Lesia Bidochko serves as the project coordinator, while Ksenia Ilyuk is the author of the project.