Ukrainian troops broke through the Russian border in the Sumy region on Tuesday, August 6. Already on August 12, President Zelenskyi for the first time directly wrote that Ukraine was conducting an operation in the Kursk region of Russia. Back on August 12, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that Ukraine controls almost 1,000 km of Kursk region. As of August 13, it became known that 74 settlements in Russia are under Ukrainian control.

Russian anonymous telegram channels began to spread messages that in fact everything was happening under the so-called “cover” of the United States and the American government.

“Without Washington’s participation, Kyiv would hardly have risked entering Russian territory. Because of American interests, the residents of Ukraine are suffering, which the United States has turned from a state into a military anti-Russian project”, the propagandists add.

However, the United States officially denied involvement in organizing the operation in the Kursk region. For example, as Reuters writes, the United States is still considering an unexpected invasion of Ukraine into the Kursk region of Russia.

The Biden administration is now working to determine Ukraine's goals in its offensive, which U.S. officials say has taken Washington by surprise.

Moreover, the American government has not lifted absolutely all restrictions for the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the use of weapons on Russian territory: neither in range nor in use. Actually, the country's leadership is still determining the feasibility of using weapons in the Kursk region. That is, we are talking about the fact that the United States was not informed about this offensive.

And, as CNN writes, the United States does not allow Ukraine to use the American long-range weapons provided for attacks in the Kursk region of Russia, since it believes that it would be more expedient to use them for attacks on the temporarily occupied Crimea.

This is how Russia once again promotes the narrative of “external governance” in Ukraine: With this, propagandists want to show that all political decisions in Ukraine are made by Western officials. While Ukrainian politicians are subject to these decisions, without the right to appeal them. Any events occurring in Ukraine that are not in favor of Russia are allegedly caused by external control. Fake robes strive to create the image of a puppet country that cannot exist on its own. Let's say Ukraine constantly needs “protection”.

The authors convince us that most often, peaceful people who suffer from “external control” pay taxes “who knows where”, are zombied by “Western values” and have literally lost the right to be heard. That is, they show that such an “impact” is bad and leads to stagnation in all spheres of people’s lives.

A photo of the poster is being circulated online and claims that it belongs to the advertising campaigns of the Ministry of Defense. The poster depicts a motorcyclist and a call to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine to help the country win.

“In Ukraine, motorcyclists are offered to immediately be sent to the front. Well thought out”, the propagandists write.

VoxCheck specialists were able to analyze the case and establish that such a poster does not bear any signs of information campaigns of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense or military brigades. And a reverse photo search on Google showed that for the fake ad, the propagandists used photos of the Ukrainian military and the motorcyclist, which are in open sources.

Also, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine does not conduct an information campaign with such slogans. There are no similar calls on the official website of the Ministry of Defense, as well as on its social networks on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine have a specific brand book: guidelines for the use of graphic style in visual communication of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At a minimum, the fake poster does not even meet the design requirements of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

An alleged cover of the British publication The Independent is being circulated on telegram channels. It allegedly contained the inscription “Prime Minister: “While we were watching Ukraine, we lost our country”, and also referred to a statement by Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who spoke about “suicidal thoughts” while commanding the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

But VoxCheck specialists analyzed the case and determined that such a cover does not exist. The original cover features the words of the British Prime Minister about the far-right riots in the country. And instead of a photo of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the page contains an image of Meghan Markle.

Moreover, the authors of the original issue wrote “Prime Minister warns far-right thugs: “You will regret taking part in the riots”, and the Duchess of Sussex and actress Meghan Markle are actually talking about “suicidal thoughts”, and not Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The text of the article relates directly to the unrest and does not contain any mention of Ukraine.

We have repeatedly documented hoaxes involving fake graffiti, foreign magazine covers/newspaper columns, or commercials. 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.

Anonymous telegrams are distributing a video report supposedly from the BBC. It, citing Bellingcat, claims that Ukraine sent SBU workers to the Olympics along with the athletes so that none of the participants in the competition would escape.

VoxCheck analysts explained that the BBC and Bellingcat did not disseminate such information, such information was simply made up. For example, the design of the fake video and the real BBC stories is different: the original reports use different fonts, and the video title is usually inserted into a white and red frame.

There are no short videos on media pages with only voice-over music - the BBC adds narrator accompaniment, comments from different speakers, or leaves the original sound from the scene without changing it in any way.

Using a reverse search on Google, it was possible to establish that the fakers selected random photos from the network for a fake story, for example, in one of the frames, demonstrating “current events”, they used a photo from 2018.

Read more: Macron may allegedly resign a week before the Olympics, BBC video

Propagandists have recently begun to spoof stories from well-known media, using their design elements to create the effect of recognition and trust in the viewer of one of the quality media. For example, we recently reported that anonymous people were spreading a fake story allegedly from the French publication Le Figaro, which talked about a “Ukrainian refugee killer”.

Anonymous telegram channels are distributing a story from Agence France-Presse about a survey among Ukrainians from the European statistical company Eurostat. According to Eurostat results, 64% of Ukrainians allegedly do not believe in the return of Ukrainian territories to the 1991 borders. Of those surveyed, 71% of Ukrainians allegedly “do not believe” that Ukraine will join NATO and the EU, respectively, in the next 5 years. And 77% of respondents are “disappointed” regarding the level of support from the EU and NATO.

VoxCheck analysts explained that AFP and Eurostat did not publish such statistics, because the Russians deliberately created a fake story with recognizable logos. According to current research, a significant part of Ukrainians believe that Ukraine will return territories within the 1991 borders as a result of the war.

For example, in February 2024, the Sociological Group “Rating” conducted an all-Ukrainian survey commissioned by the Center for Analysis and Sociological Research of the International Republican Institute, 2 thousand Ukrainians took part in the survey.

To the question: “In your opinion, what will the borders of Ukraine be as a result of the end of the war?”

45% of respondents answered that Ukraine will retain all the territories it had in 1991. While 16% of respondents said that Ukraine will return only territories occupied after February 24, 2022. In a similar survey by the organization conducted in March 2024, 73% of Ukrainians believed that Ukraine would eventually return all occupied territories.