The allegation that the war in Ukraine was staged was circulating in the American segment of Facebook and Twitter. As evidence of the so-called staging, the authors of the message published videos in which armed men in military uniform with yellow ribbons on their hands enter the building, and a film crew is standing nearby and filming the scene. It's fake.

According to Reuters analysts, the video circulating on social networks is from the filming of the film “Nadia” in Latvia. This film is based on the story of a woman who lost her parents and partner and gave birth to a child during the war. On the Latvian channel RUS.LSM, they filmed a story about the tape, and also uploaded an additional video on YouTube with footage from the filming, where the cameraman and the bomb explosion are visible (36 seconds). Also, the director of the film, Artem Kocharian, posted a video from the filming process on TikTok with the hashtags “cinema”, “backstage”. In a few seconds, his video was being circulated by social media users and they wrote that “the war in Ukraine is like a Wag the Dog movie”.

Propagandists use such fakes to deny the war in Ukraine and discriminate against the Ukrainian authorities. Detector Media has already talked about the fabrications that the massacres in Bucha near Kyiv were allegedly staged by the Ukrainian military.

Anonymous telegram channels broadcasting pro-Russian rhetoric distribute photos of SMS messages with the Law of Ukraine on mobilization, and claim that the Ukrainian authorities have allegedly begun testing a system for issuing draft notices to mobile phones. And ignoring SMS is regarded as evading military service. It's fake.

The case drew the attention of specialists from the VoxCheck project. On the air of the Kyiv TV channel, Fedir Venislavskyi, a member of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, said that the draft notification of mobilization in messengers is only being discussed so far. And if it is developed, they will send notifications to Telegram and Viber, and not via SMS, as propaganda writes. It is also important to clarify: if such a message comes in the future, it is not an official call to the military registration and enlistment office.

The Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov noted that it is now technically impossible to implement notifications in messengers until there is a high-quality register of military servicemen, and a verified phone number is not linked to the register identifier.

Russian propaganda systematically parasitizes on the topic of mobilization. By spreading such fakes, Russian propagandists are trying to discredit the Ukrainian authorities and the army, and sow panic among the people. Previously, Detector Media denied cases that military registration and enlistment offices handed out draft notices and took away cars in favor of the army, and also began handing out draft notices to women.

Such a message appeared in the Russian propaganda media and was distributed in the Russian segment of Facebook. A fragment of an interview was published where an adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podoliak stated that the alleged physical destruction of all pro-Russian people would solve the Russian issue. This is manipulation.

According to MythDetector analysts, Mykhailo Podoliak did not talk about the physical destruction of pro-Russian people. On March 31, on the air of Channel 24, he spoke about the influence of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which, according to him, is a branch of the Russian Patriarchate. And the task of the Russian Patriarchate is to attack the Ukrainian state. Podoliak notes that in the first months of a full-scale war, the UOC-MP could be physically cleansed of the pro-Russian clergy.

Thus, propagandists are trying to discredit the Ukrainian authorities and intimidate Ukrainians. Earlier, Detector Media wrote about how Russian propaganda uses intimidation tactics.

Russian propaganda media are spreading a test-drive video of Stryker and Cougar vehicles given to Ukraine by the United States, where a voice-over allegedly says: “These weapons will help us occupy the territory of Ukraine”. It's fake.

Analysts of the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found that the original video tweeted by the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov did not have a voice-over. Also, in the video of the minister, the inscription contains the word “liberate”,  and in the video of propagandists this word was replaced by “occupy”. Later, Russian media noted that the Ministry of Defense removed the video with the word occupy, but there is no evidence of this.

Russian propaganda is trying to discredit the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and convince the West that the weapons provided by partners to fight the Russian occupiers are in fact being allegedly used for other purposes. Earlier, Detector Media denied the fake that weapons provided to Ukraine by Western countries fall into the hands of criminals in Africa.

This message appeared in the Russian propaganda media. According to it, the command of the Romanian Ground Forces congratulated the Ukrainian army on Easter with a postcard, which allegedly depicts a cemetery at the top. “Against the background of thousands of losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, such a greeting looks very strange”, the propagandists add. It's fake.

As StopFake analysts note, the postcard was not addressed to the Ukrainian military. Neither in the publication nor in the picture is there any mention of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the image of the coat of arms of the General Staff of the Romanian Land Forces and its main element - the golden eagle - also has nothing to do with Ukraine. Also, the postcard does not show a cemetery. The three crosses that propaganda calls a cemetery symbolize the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Thus, the propagandists are trying to discredit the cooperation between Ukraine and Romania. Earlier, Detector Media wrote about a fake spread by Russian propaganda media that allegedly Romania claimed Ukraine to be part of it.

Imposing shameful “epithets” is a tactic used by propagandists when addressing people. These are abusive and insulting words referring to a specific group of persons or one person, in order to form a “correct vision” of a phenomenon or process, according to propaganda. So, if a propagandist wants to change his/her mind about this or that person and form the desired effect (negative attitude) among the viewer/listener and reader, he or she uses profanity, imposes nicknames and shameful “epithets” on the opponent.

Repeatedly propagandists turned to the personality of Volodymyr Zelenskyi, trying to humiliate and devalue him in the eyes of Ukrainians. With the help of Russian propaganda, Zelenskyi was able to appear in various roles, in particular:

A vain person who spends all budgetary funds only on himself;

A punisher-satanist, destroying the Ukrainian church property;

A person with drug addiction;

A theft of Western money;

A puppet puppet controlled by the West;

Inhuman, throwing “everyone” to the front, etc.

Such “epithets” are intended to form a negative image of Zelenskyi among the public, allegedly reinforced by his actions. Propagandists deliberately build the image of “Zelia” as an envoy of the West in order to undermine his authority both among Europeans and Ukrainians.

As for the formation of negative attitudes towards a certain group of people, in our study “You are either Russian or gay”, we described the use of offensive words by Russia to spread LGBT disinformation. For example, in the course of our analysis, both in the Russian and Ukrainian segments of social networks, the words “gayropa”, “evrogay”, “UN gay assembly”, “gaysek of the Council of Europe”, “hohlopedyk” were often encountered. Such words are hate speech towards representatives of the LGBTI+ community.

Propagandists use perverted phrases to ridicule and humiliate LGBT people. Readers get the impression that everything that concerns LGBT people is negative. Moreover, when the authors spread fakes and use swear words about LGBT people to refer to Ukrainian or Western leadership, in this way they associate homosexuality with something humiliating, a sign of weakness or incompetence, etc. Although homosexuality is the same common orientation as heterosexuality.