Russian propaganda sources are spreading a distorted quote from the former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and now the Ambassador of Ukraine to Britain, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, referring to the British tabloid The Sun. The former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, during a speech to Ukrainian servicemen undergoing training in the UK, allegedly advised them “not to fear death, because they have no chance of survival anyway”.

“Then why aren’t you on the front lines? What kind of scum are all these Zaluzhnyi, Zelenskyi, and Yermak”, the propagandists comment.

The Sun website did indeed publish an article titled “Watch Ukrainian troops training in the UK given orders to ‘kill without hesitation’ in a stirring speech by a former “iron general””. However, his words were distorted, as reported by StopFake. In fact, Zaluzhnyi advised Ukrainian soldiers “not to fear death and not to be afraid to look the enemy in the eye”. He stressed that the war is becoming tougher, and therefore may leave little chance of survival for those who do not learn to defend themselves.

Russian propaganda often accuses the Ukrainian authorities of covering up losses in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, using the tactic of reflection. In parallel, disinformation is spread, for example, about half a million Ukrainian soldiers who have died. In this way, Russian propagandists are trying to demoralize both the civilian population and the military. In addition, such narratives are aimed at discrediting the country's military-political leadership and officials in the eyes of Ukrainians.

Russian propaganda sources are spreading manipulative information that Ukrainians made up 33.1% of criminals in Germany, citing data from the 2023 report of the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany (BKA).

“The country’s authorities are alarmed by the number of rapes or harassment. The number of thefts has also increased by 34.6%, and the number of intentional and unintentional murders has increased similarly”, the propagandists write.

But the data was manipulated, and this is reported by StopFake. In fact, this percentage (33.1%) was used in the report to indicate the share of Ukrainians among all migrants living in Germany. Instead, 11.6% of Ukrainian refugees were suspected of committing crimes. For comparison, the figures for immigrants from Syria are 21.4% and 19.2%, respectively. Moreover, according to the report, they are the leaders in migrant crime.

With the beginning of a full-scale invasion, agitprop is spreading theses that Ukrainian refugees are allegedly organizing pogroms, behaving impudently, not wanting to work, etc. And therefore they will soon “start being expelled from Europe”.

After all, propagandists are trying to show that Ukrainian refugees are supposedly a total threat to the sovereignty and security of EU countries. Propaganda primarily seeks to discredit Ukrainian refugees in the eyes of Europeans and present them as supporters of Nazi ideology, who are ready to resort to vandalism, violation of the law for their own purposes. All this contributes to a decrease in aid to Ukraine from EU countries.

We recommend reading our previous cases on this topic, because the Kremlin systematically speculates on this: allegedly the Poles declared that they “do not want to see” Ukrainian refugees in their country; allegedly a refugee barista from Ukraine “demonstrated his Nazi tendencies” by drawing Nazi symbols on coffee. And in our weekly review of disinformation, we told how propagandists lied about the mobilization of Ukrainian refugees in Europe.

In Russia, they want to create a whole separate international “fact-checking” association – the Global Fact-checking Network (GFCN), to unite those who share “Russian views and values”. As for the specific goals and values that the Russian so-called “fact-checkers” are going to defend, the Russians did not specify.

In general, the creation of such a quasi-organization became the main goal of the so-called international forum “Dialogue on Fakes 2.0” held in Moscow on November 20, which essentially brought together all the main Kremlin propagandists and their henchmen from around the world. The first, main panel of the discussion, whose participants included the voice of the Russian Foreign Ministry Mariia Zakharova, Steven Seagal, one of the main propagandists from Telegram - Mykhailo Zvinchuk (owner of the Telegram channel "Rybar"), as well as the general director of the TASS agency Andrii Kondrashov and others, can already say a lot about the level of the forum.

In addition to the usual rhetoric about the West continuing to aggressively “impose” its only correct point of view on others, while Russia remains an unwavering fighter for the truth, it was at this conference that they decided to announce the creation of a new international fact-checking association. Because those that already exist – meaning the global IFCN network and its European analogue EFCSN – in the opinion of Russians “sometimes only perform a political mission and sometimes have nothing in common with real objective fact-checking”. But the Russian association will be called upon to provide “a healthy alternative that will help make the world a better place”.

The founders of the international association even showed the code of a responsible fact-checker with the right words about objectivity, openness of methodology, which must be signed before joining the association. To emphasize that it is the Russian association of “fact-checkers” that is more open than its Western counterparts, Kondrashov even stated that “the American association annually checks its members for political loyalty”, because these organizations that are part of their association “only work out the interests of other countries”. True, this implies an independent audit conducted by auditors from different countries and checking, among other things, the compliance of the work.

Russian propaganda sources are distributing a fake advertising flyer allegedly from the funeral and ritual service Traur. The youth of Kyiv offer to “lie in a real coffin” for 60 minutes, in particular, to “overcome the fear of death”. In addition, the fakers noted the availability of a 50% discount for “young people of draft age”.

“The clients are indicated absolutely specifically - these are those who will have to go to the front line in time. And with a high probability, they will return from there not in a fake coffin, but in a real one”, the Kremlin publication writes.

As reported by StopFake, the owner of the funeral and ritual service Traur denied the information about providing such services and about making an advertising flyer. This is another Russian fake aimed at demoralizing the population of Ukraine during a full-scale war. Moreover, the propagandists were most likely inspired by the recent news from Japan, where a funeral home really does provide the service of “lying in a coffin” to think about life and death.

Russian sources are distributing a news release from the German Welt TV channel, which showed a video of soldiers from the 12th Azov Brigade storming Russian combat positions. The fake news claims that Azov used footage from the Call of Duty video game, and the video is supposedly from the Pokrovsk direction. They also accused German media of failing to comply with journalistic standards.

But the information about using video game footage is false. VoxCheck reports that there is no computer graphics in the video, the fighting is real. On July 15, 2024, the unit's official YouTube channel published a first-person video consisting of three parts: advancing through positions, clearing and consolidating after the assault. In addition, the assault took place in the Serebrianskyi forestry of the Luhansk region, and not in the Pokrovsk direction.

Russian propagandists impose the opinion that the Azov fighters support ideas that the modern world sharply rejects: anti-Semitism, Nazism, and other types of xenophobia. The Azov fighters are shown as those who devalue people based on their origins. In Moscow’s vision, Azov is ready to kill for “Ukrainian blood”. This is not the first time that the Kremlin has presented Ukrainians in this way — as aggressive, ultra-nationalistic, and valuing only “Ukrainian blood”. For example, Russian propaganda has already spread fakes about Ukrainian fighters’ wives complaining that their men transfuse them with “Muscovite blood”; or that Ukrainians prohibit foreign citizens from donating blood.

Despite the fact that in Ukraine (as in any other country) there is a share of people who are supporters of far-right ideas, it is the Kremlin that deliberately exaggerates their weight in Ukrainian society. In addition, it attributes to them a common ideology with Nazi Germany and the attitude towards sympathizers of Russia as a lower caste. At the same time, in the last parliamentary elections of 2019, for example, nationalists did not enter the Verkhovna Rada, not to mention far-right movements.

Russian news sites are spreading information that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has allegedly found a “use” for people with disabilities – it is going to send them, as well as women, to demine the territory of Ukraine.

“Due to the understaffing of units and the acute shortage of manpower in Ukraine, people with amputations are taken not only into the sappers, but also into the infantry”,  the propagandists add.

However, in Ukraine, the UN is implementing a program to employ people with disabilities. Within the framework of this program, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is expanding employment opportunities in the field of demining and cleaning territories - for women, veterans, victims of explosive objects and people with disabilities. However, this does not mean that these people will work directly with mines, as the propagandists said. The main goal of the program is to ensure equal access to work, creating comfortable and safe conditions.

The first participants in the project, namely four Ukrainian explosive ordnance victims, have already been hired by The HALO Trust, where they will analyse satellite and drone imagery to identify and map mine-contaminated areas. They have been trained in a programme that focuses on the technical and non-technical skills needed to work in mine action.

“Today, much attention is paid to the implementation of policies that ensure equal access to work in the field of mine action, the creation of specialized training programs that will include both technical and non-technical skills necessary for work in this field, and the creation of conditions that will ensure comfortable and safe employment”, said Colonel Oleh Shuvarskyi, Deputy Head of the Main Directorate for Mine Action, Civil Defense and Environmental Safety.