Spilnota Detector Media
Detector Media collects and documents real-time chronicles of the Kremlin disinformation about the Russian invasion. Ukraine for decades has been suffering from Kremlin disinformation. Here we document all narratives, messages, and tactics, which Russia is using from February 17th, 2022. Reminder: the increasing of shelling and fighting by militants happened on the 17th of February 2022 on the territory of Ukraine. Russian propaganda blames Ukraine for these actions.

On 21 December, on the 1031th day of the full-scale war, our editorial office recorded:

2602
Fake
774
Manipulation
753
Message
541
Disclosure
Русскій фейк, іді на***!

Fake Fake information on how the British Embassy recommends its citizens to “run away” from the Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centre workers

An image of a postcard allegedly issued by the British Embassy in Ukraine is being circulated online, which advises British citizens to avoid meetings with representatives of the Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centre when visiting the country.

“In short: avoid the shopping mall. Cross the street if you see them. If you can't avoid them, don't give in to provocations, racism, pushing, don't look them in the eye. If you're shoved into a minibus, don't panic. Call and wait for help from the embassy. Don't sign anything”, the propagandists write.

The British Embassy in Ukraine reported that they did not print such a flyer, and information about it on the Internet is fake. The embassy also noted that the official recommendations of the British Foreign Office on travel to Ukraine can be found on the department's website.

Read also: Europe will mobilize and send Ukrainian refugees to the front

Fake Refutation of the fact that teachers in Ukrainian schools “force” students to donate money to the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Pro-Kremlin media are distributing a photo from a student's school diary, in which the teacher allegedly drew the parents' attention to the fact that the child had failed to donate money to the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the third time — and as a result, wrote comments in the diary. The teacher then threatens to contact the SBU if the parents do not pay attention to the lack of donations.

In fact, the Russians forged a photo of the diary and the inscription in it. Several errors indicate forgery. In particular, the propagandists write “native language” in the list of school subjects. While the correct name of the subject is “Ukrainian language”, the subject “Native language” simply does not exist in Ukrainian schools.

At the same time, the fakers write that if the parents ignore the “problem”, the teacher will contact the SBU. But all donations to the army in Ukraine are voluntary. Law enforcement officers can accept the application, but most likely will not consider it, because refusing to donate does not violate any law.

Read on Censor.NET: Refutation of the fake that children in Ukraine are forced to donate blood for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, photo evidence

Fake Fake about how Ukrainian first-graders were allegedly given pencils with the inscription “death to Russians”

Against the backdrop of the start of the school year in Ukrainian schools, propagandists have claimed that first-graders from families with military personnel were given pencils with the inscription “death to Russians”. As “proof”, the Russians are adding a photo of such a pencil.

However, the inscription on the pencil was edited. In the Ukrainian segment of social networks or media, they did not report that students were given similar pencils. Using the Forensically tool, it was possible to detect that the photo has signs of editing. For example, the ELA (Error Level Analysis) tool highlights in a brighter color the elements of the picture that could have been edited. On the pencil, the photo of which is being distributed by users, one can see the blue leaves and the inscription itself. Therefore, most likely, the fakers added these marks in a photo editor.

The mistake in the word “Russians” also points to the forgery. In fact, it would be correct to use the letter i and not e. In most cases, when creating a fake, Russians incorrectly translate words into Ukrainian, which is what gives away the forgery.

We have documented fakes many times, whether they involve fake graffiti, foreign magazine covers/newspaper columns, or advertising videos. In this way, propagandists aim to show that their rhetoric (for example, that Zelenskyi is hated by the whole world) is also repeated in the West. This may make readers think that the public is really unhappy with Ukraine. And especially when the authors use elements of popular culture, implying that people are laughing at the situation in Ukraine and that the Ukrainian agenda is a reason for Europe to laugh.

Russia presents Russophobia as a separate type of Nazism that originated in Ukraine and is spreading en masse around the world. Anyone who criticizes Russia is a Russophobe, and therefore a Nazi. At first, the disinformation message about “Russophobia” was aimed mainly at the Ukrainian audience, but after the world community supported Ukraine in the war, it spread to European countries. It even went as far as accusing Israel of Nazism.

Fake Fake news about Ukraine creating a “Hitlerjugend”

It is reported in the Russian segment of social networks that the National Corps party is planning to create an educational center for young people in Kherson. The authors of the message indicate that they want to create in Ukraine an “analog of the Nazi youth organization Hitlerjugend, where they will conduct ideological education and pre-conscription training courses for high school students and students.

However, there is no information about the opening of the so-called “educational center for youth” aimed at supporting patriotic education in the Kherson region. Let us recall that the “National Corps” is a political party created in 2016 by former members of the Azov unit led by Andrii Biletskyi. In an interview in October 2023, Beletsky said that the party ceased its activities because after the full-scale invasion, most of its representatives joined the ranks of the Defense Forces.

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 “Russian blood”; or that Ukrainians prohibit foreign citizens from becoming blood donors.

So Putin literally has his own “Hitler Youth”. It was the youth organization “Yunarmiya” (Youth Army), created in 2016 on the basis of the accompanying structures of the Russian army and serving to militarize the youth and prepare “cannon fodder” for Putin's wars of conquest. Structures of this movement began to be created in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine in 2022. In 2023, it became known that the Russian regime was forming so-called Student Labor Brigades for propaganda in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Most youth propaganda projects in Russia are guided by a special government agency - the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Russian Youth), created back in 2008.

Fake Misinformation that the water tariff in Ukraine is 130 per cubic meter

Information is being spread on social networks as if the water tariff throughout Ukraine is 130 UAH/cubic meter. And they add that the Ukrainian authorities are also planning to raise tariffs for electricity and gas.

But only in June of this year in the city of Pokrov in the Dnipropetrovsk region they really raised the cost of the tariff for water supply and sanitation to 130 UAH/cubic meter of water, but in July the decision was canceled, now the total payment is 36.80 UAH/cubic meter. In other regions the tariff does not reach 130 UAH/cubic meter at all.

Now the tariff for water supply in Pokrov is 21.40 UAH/cubic meter, and for water disposal – 15.40 UAH/cubic meter, that is, in total it is 36.80 UAH/cubic meter.

In other cities of Ukraine that changed tariffs in 2024, the increase was also not as significant as they say in the post. Thus, since April in Pryluky, Chernihiv region, for household consumers, the cost of water supply has increased from UAH 13.55 to UAH 19.88/cubic meter, and for water disposal from UAH 24.67 to UAH 32.80/cubic meter.

By spreading such a message, propagandists want to feed the narrative that Ukraine is allegedly uninhabitable due to the lack of electricity or high prices for utilities. In this way, the authors want to sow panic among Ukrainians in order to destabilize the mood and create a feeling that “nothing will change”. Also, by calling the so-called collapse revenge for the Crimean Bridge, Russians once again seek to shift responsibility for what is happening to Ukraine. They say that Russia is destroying infrastructure solely because of Ukraine’s aggression. However, it is Russia that is the aggressor, and it is this country that started the war.

Orest Slyvenko, Artur Koldomasov, Vitalii Mykhailiv, Oleksandra Kotenko, Oleksandr Siedin, Kostiantyn Zadyraka, and Oleksiy Pivtorak are collaborating on this chronicle. Lesia Bidochko serves as the project coordinator, while Ksenia Ilyuk is the author of the project.