There were stories about this on Russian television, in particular, the propagandists went to the village of Vasylivka, Zaporizhzhia region, to the only official checkpoint on the front line, where people leave the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and in some cases vice versa. The propagandists, of course, paid attention only to those people who go to the occupied territory and assure that recently the flow of refugees from the Ukrainian side has almost doubled. Like, someone is going to visit relatives or on business, many have luggage, which means they are going there for a long time. It is not true.

According to fact checkers from the Insider such “news” does not indicate compared with what moment the flow of those wishing to visit the occupied territory has increased. It is also completely incomprehensible why this is called a flow of refugees, if the author of the plot himself admits that who visits relatives and who goes on business. In addition, they are silent about the fact that the day before the Russian side closed the checkpoint for several days due to security issues.

At the same time, a Kherson journalist Konstiantyn Ryzhenko was driving through Vasylivka from the occupied territory. He described his experience on the Radio Svoboda (Liberty) website. According to him, there are so many people that you have to stand in a live queue for several days, so he advises you to take a mat and a blanket or a sleeping bag, or even a tent, with you. “It's more convenient and comfortable to sleep in it than in a car or a bus”, says Ryzhenko.

This thesis was spread by the pro-Russian Internet publication in Ukraine Strana.ua. It refers to Deutsche Welle. Strana.ua writes that Ukrainian refugees are attracted by low prices in Russian-speaking travel agencies and that they are not embarrassed by the Russian language of the staff and signs “We speak Russian”. However, this is not true.

Some Ukrainian refugees in Germany actually used the services of one Russian-speaking travel agency in Bonn not because it was Russian-speaking, but because the employees of this travel agency changed the business format and decided to support and help the Ukrainians.

According to the representative of this bureau, many of their excursions are funded by charitable organizations in Cologne and Bonn. She had to convince many Ukrainians that there is nothing to be ashamed of if, instead of sitting in hostels for refugees, they go to Amsterdam for one day. In addition, the representative of the travel agency said that Ukrainians in Germany do not have Russophobia, they can clearly separate Russians who condemn the war from those who support the Putin regime and military aggression against Ukraine.

Some women told Iryna that they also faced hostility towards them from Russian-speaking residents in Germany, these are mainly those who watch Russian propaganda TV channels here and believe that Putin is fighting “Nazis and Bandera”, the article says.