The Kremlin promotes disinformation through the Nigerian publication THE NATION, the Senegalese SENE NEWS, and the Egyptian El Mostaqbal. This was reported by the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council.

• THE NATION, for example, published an article about the alleged sale by the Office of the President of Ukraine of land to the Soros Foundation in order to bury chemical waste.

• SENE NEWS publishes “investigative articles” about Ukraine with links to anonymous sources or fictitious journalists.

• El Mostaqbal quotes Russian officials accusing Ukraine and spreading narratives about “biological laboratories” or that “Ukraine is a US puppet”, for example.

Considering that the fakes on the analyzed resources have not received significant publicity among the international community, unlike the Russian information space, we can conclude that Russian propaganda uses these media to increase the confidence of the Russian domestic population in false information. Like, “even foreign media are writing about this!”.

You can read more about how Russia promotes its narratives through African media in a joint study by the Center for Countering Disinformation and the Molfar OSINT agency.

Australia's national broadcaster ABC has released a documentary “The Ukrainian War: The Other Side”, in which British journalist Sean Langan covers the war through the eyes of the Russian side.

In particular, the film disseminates the following Russian propaganda narratives:

- in 2014, a coup d’état took place in Ukraine;

- Ukrainians from Donbas wanted to go to Russia;

- Ukrainians are Nazis supported by the West;

- Bucha is a fake;

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces use civilians as “human shields” and fire at civilians;

– Russia did not start the war, it is ending it.

That is, in attempts to show the “other” side, Sean Langan actually provided the Russians with a platform to justify their aggression against Ukraine. The Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council writes about this.

The dissemination of such materials to an international audience is promoting Russia and humiliating the Ukrainians, who today are fighting with blood for the right to freedom and independence. We previously wrote that the Ukrainian Ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko called the film “the equivalent of a bowl of vomit”, contacted the country’s Ministry of Communications and asked for an explanation from the TV channel.

Also, in February 2024, a British journalist filmed a similar documentary with the occupiers near Avdiivka, which also turned into an oasis of Russian narratives.

Russian telegram channels are disseminating information that Kyiv has allegedly begun to prepare young men for confrontation with Russian troops during the upcoming defense in the Sumy direction. According to propagandists, “young men will have to form partisan movements and begin sabotage”. In addition, Russian propaganda says that Kyiv has allegedly already begun to use such a detachment in one of the directions. And as a result, a sixteen-year-old Ukrainian medic of the 1st Infantry Battalion of the 67th DUK Mechanized Infantry Brigade with the call sign “Troy” allegedly died.

The Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council denied this information. In fact, the statement about the training of “young Ukrainian partisans” to fight the Russians is an invention of Russian propagandists that does not correspond to reality. There is also fake information about the death of a Ukrainian combat medic precisely as a result of the partisan movement again. Unfortunately, Anastasia Marianchuk with the call sign “Troy” actually died on March 18, 2024, but from enemy shelling, and not because she joined one of the so-called “detachments”. In addition, she was not 16, but 22 years old.

This fake nourishes the propaganda narrative that Nazism rules in Ukraine, so the country needs to be “denazified”. However, this is only one of the justifications for unprovoked Russian aggression. In the end, propagandists seek to demonize both the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian Armed Forces, since they have allegedly already begun to involve children in physical confrontation with Russia. Previously, we refuted the information that in Kyiv they allegedly distribute “propaganda” to women, elderly people and children so that they could be mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russian resources disseminate information that during his visit to Kyiv on March 18, 2024, American Senator Lindsey Graham insisted on the mobilization of Ukrainians who are not even 25 years old. In asserting this, Russian propagandists refer to an article by The Washington Post.

In fact, this information is distorted, write the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Russian propagandists have twisted Graham's words, which originally appeared in The Washington Post: “I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27. You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving — not at 25 or 27.” That is, the American senator did not call on Ukraine to mobilize those who are not even 25. He only said that in such an existential war it is not necessary to wait until the age of 27 (current conscription age).

This is not the first time that propagandists have had difficulty translating Graham's statements. For example, in May 2023, Russian propaganda attributed to the senator the words that supposedly “the deaths of Russians are the result of a successful investment of money by the American authorities”. However, these words turned out to be nothing more than manipulation.

The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reports that the Kremlin has intensified its disinformation campaign against Ukraine in the Middle East.

Russia is intensively using its diplomatic missions and intelligence network, and various means of propaganda.

The task of the Kremlin’s next hybrid special operation:

● justify a war of conquest;

● discredit Ukraine and Western countries;

● impose unacceptable terms of negotiations;

● improve your own position in the region;

● achieve a reduction in the economic and political pressure that Moscow experiences due to aggression and the commission of war crimes.

Employees of the Russian embassy in Egypt, for example, received instructions from the Kremlin to hold a series of meetings under diplomatic cover to spread disinformation about the war and carry out recruitment activities.

Also, as part of this operation, the Russians are sending propaganda materials to the embassies of other states in Cairo, which justify waging war against Ukraine.

It is, in particular, about two “documents” entitled “On the role of the West in the conflict in Ukraine” and “On the situation around Ukraine”. These materials present a pro-Putin version of the history of Ukraine since the collapse of the USSR. And Russia, of course, is presented as a victim.

The key idea that Russia is promoting in the Middle East is that there is no alternative to the scenario it has imposed for ending the war.