The Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council analyzed the information space and identified Russian information influence campaigns against Ukrainian refugees. Despite the fact that most of the analyzed messages are neutral in nature, a significant part of them are manipulations and disinformation aimed at discrediting Ukraine and its citizens abroad, as well as the governments and populations of European countries that have received Ukrainians.

Based on the results of the analysis, the Center identified three areas of information influence that Russia uses in the context of Ukrainian refugees:

1. Demonization of Ukrainian refugees aimed at a European audience

As part of this direction, the Russian Federation seeks to distort the perception of European citizens about Ukrainians and create the image of a Ukrainian refugee as an “ungrateful vandal-criminal”. In general, the Kremlin has made a lot of efforts to “demonize” Ukrainian refugees in the eyes of European audiences. To achieve the above goal, the Russians created and distributed a number of fake materials regarding Ukrainian refugees, which were then distributed in the English, Polish, French, German and Spanish segments of the information space. For example, a fake about Ukrainian refugees who allegedly set fire to a pharmaceutical compound in Poland.

2. Demonization of EU countries in the issue of supporting Ukrainian refugees, aimed at Russian and Ukrainian audiences

Along with the demonization of Ukrainian refugees aimed at a European audience, the Russian Federation also uses the topic of Ukrainian refugees to discredit the countries and citizens of the European Union in the eyes of Russian and Ukrainian audiences. The main goal is to “demonize” EU countries and citizens by creating an image of “unreliable” and “self-serving adherents of immoral values”. In particular, within the framework of this direction, among others, a fake was documented that the EU Council decided to deport 830 thousand Ukrainians.

3. “Russia’s position as the best refuge for Ukrainian refugees”

In addition to “demonizing” Ukrainians abroad and influencing the policies of European countries, the Kremlin is actively using the topic of Ukrainian refugees to justify the goals of the so-called SVO (military operation), demonstrating the desire of Ukrainian citizens to combine their lives with the Russian Federation. The main task is to discredit the military-political leadership of Ukraine and justify the war crimes of the Russian army on Ukrainian lands. Thus, within the framework of this narrative, for example, they spread the message that “in Europe, no one needs Ukrainian refugees, but Russia accepts them and gives them citizenship”.

Also, as part of a large-scale campaign by the Russian Federation to discredit Ukrainian refugees, the Center noticed similarities in common narratives with what the Kremlin promoted during the active phase of the civil war in Syria.

Pro-Russian telegram channels publish information that Metropolitan Ionafan of Tulchyn and Bratslav (UOC-MP) became a victim of repression from Kyiv because of his loyalty and unwillingness to make compromises bordering on treason. In spreading this message, propagandists refer to the statement of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Kyryl (Volodymyr Hundiaiev).

In fact, this information is fake, according to the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. There is no religious persecution or harassment based on religion in Ukraine.

Metropolitan Ionafan (Anatolii Yeletskykh) was sentenced to 5 years in prison for specific crimes not related to matters of faith. In October 2022, the SBU, during searches of the Tulchin diocese of the UOC-MP, discovered a number of propaganda postcards:

- with the image of the flag of the Russian Federation;

- with Putin’s decree on the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation;

- with images of a map of Ukraine, where Crimea is designated as the territory of the Russian Federation;

- letters (photocopies) of the Moscow Patriarch dated October 6, 2022 with a demand to pray for the President of the Russian Federation.

By spreading this fake news, Russian propaganda seeks to whitewash the agents of the Russian special services, who cynically conduct anti-state activities in Ukraine under the guise of church status. Previously, we analyzed the message of Russian propaganda that the arrest of the rector of the Sviatohirsk Lavra is supposedly “religious persecution”.

Russian telegram channels are distributing a photo of a “non-public” order of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, which allegedly states that the heads of local administrations of settlements were supposed to evacuate along with their families by June 3, and the mayor of Kharkiv was supposed to provide them with housing.

VoxCheck analysts explained that the document is fake.

After all, the contents of the order do not comply with the rules for drawing up official documentation:

- in the original orders, the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration spells out the word year in full, and does not abbreviate it, as they did in the fake document;

- the word “order” is used in the plural, although it is correct to write in the singular;

— the phrase “universal list” regarding heads of administrations is incorrect. In Ukrainian the correct word is “universal”.

A report from the Euronews TV channel is being distributed on social networks. It claims that in western Ukraine, the Territorial center of recruitment and social support workers beat an ethnic Hungarian when they tried to mobilize him.

Fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project established that Euronews did not publish such a video. It was assembled from videos that were not connected to each other.

Through a reverse photo search, it turned out that for the fake Euronews video, propagandists used excerpts of individual videos from open sources. Thus, the footage of the Territorial center of recruitment and social support employees was taken from the report Investigation. Info for April 2024. The video does not mention representatives of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.