Propagandists spreading pro-Russian rhetoric in the media began to disseminate information based on an interview with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi to the British publication The Sun. Like, he admitted that Russian aggression is “supported” by most of the world, and the interests of Ukraine are defended by “at best 14 countries”. In addition, according to them, Zelenskyi allegedly admitted “Ukraine’s inability to resist the military actions waged by Russia”. This is manipulation.

Analysts from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found that in fact, the President of Ukraine, in an interview with The Sun, accused Putin of “fuelling a fire” around the world that risks spiraling out of control, and added that a Hamas attack on Israel was Russia’s “great desire”. According to Zelenskyi, Russia plans to continue destabilizing the situation in the world, and the Balkans may be next to come under attack. According to him, this will continue until the Russian regime is stopped and punished.

Zelenskyi did note that Russia does not yet “feel that the whole world is against it”, but he did not claim that Russian aggression is “supported” by most of the world. The UN General Assembly condemned the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine by an absolute majority: the resolution “Aggression against Ukraine” was supported by 141 countries, and only five delegations - totalitarian Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Syria and Eritrea - voted against. In addition, on November 23, 2022, the European Parliament voted in favor of a resolution declaring Russia a state sponsor of terrorism for its large-scale invasion of the territory of Ukraine. A month earlier – on October 13, 2022 – PACE adopted a resolution in which it also declared the Russian regime terrorist. In addition, on October 13, 2023, PACE recommended that member states of the Council of Europe recognize Putin as illegitimate at the end of his current presidential term and cease all contacts with him. All these decisions of international institutions are the consequences of Russian aggression, which clearly demonstrate the unprecedented support for Ukraine by leading democratic countries.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyi also did not make any statements in this interview about Ukraine’s inability to resist Russia.

Propagandists spread such manipulations in order to personally discredit Zelenskyi and accuse him of betraying the interests of Ukrainian citizens. They say that the war must be stopped on Russia’s terms, and even the President of Ukraine admits this. Detector Media has repeatedly refuted the fabrications of propagandists aimed at personal attacks against Zelenskyi.

Propagandists spreading pro-Russian rhetoric on anonymous telegram channels and other social networks began to spread fake information that the Ukrainian language ombudsman Taras Kremin allegedly “admitted” that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were shooting at Russian-speaking citizens. They use a video with his quote, which is supposed to “confirm” such messages. After the dissemination of such information, StopFake decided to check this information. It is not true.

On November 21, Taras Kremin actually made a comment on the Ukrainian service of Radio Svoboda (Liberty), where he spoke about language problems within Ukraine. On this broadcast, the resource’s journalist spoke about the discussion that arose in Ukrainian society. According to it, one part of the population says that it does not matter what language one speaks if a person is a patriot of Ukraine, and the second part says that communicating in Ukrainian is still very important. It was these two opinions that the journalist asked the language ombudsman to comment on. To which Kremen replied that “with the beginning of a full-scale invasion, the factor of language is not only a factor of freedom, but also the security of our identity and culture, and this is a marker of “friend or foe”. According to him, soldiers from the front line have repeatedly said that where one hears the Russian language, the first reaction is a shot. Propagandists used this to make it look like they were targeting all Russian speakers, especially civilians.

However, if you look more closely at the quote, you can hear that we are talking only about identifying a person as “friend or foe” precisely on the front line. There was no talk about shooting at Russian-speaking civilians in the interview.

Propagandists spread such manipulations to strengthen their own myth about the oppression of the Russian-speaking population. They say that “protecting” this category of people is one of the goals of launching a full-scale invasion. However, it was Russia that turned the language issue into a political instrument. In addition, it attacks civilians in mostly Russian-speaking cities, which undermines the narrative of “protecting” civilians who communicate in Russian.

Propagandists spreading pro-Russian rhetoric on anonymous telegram channels and other social networks are spreading fake information that Poland is allegedly canceling payments to Ukrainian refugees from January 1, 2024. They say that Poland was Ukraine’s lawyer in the European Union, but Zelenskyi quickly managed to turn a friend into an enemy. As proof of this decision, users add a screenshot of the news from November 17, 2023, allegedly from the official website of the Polish government.

After disseminating such information, StopFake decided to check whether the Polish government really made a similar decision and reported it on the official website. As it turned out, the information disseminated is not true.

Project specialists went to the corresponding website of the Polish government, from which they allegedly took a screenshot distributed by propagandists. There is a separate page for citizens of Ukraine, containing official information for refugees in Ukrainian. Among the news published there, there is no information that the Polish government has decided to cancel social payments for refugees from January 1. The remaining publications are still relevant, in which you can familiarize yourself with all existing assistance programs. While researching this site, they also found the same picture with which Russian propaganda created a fake screenshot. The news “Living and working in Poland – 2022” uses the same image as in the false reports spread by propagandists. In addition, in the edited “announcement”, Russian propaganda made a mistake: the word “terminates” in Ukrainian should have been written in another way. This error indicates that the information may be incorrect.

The StopFake analysts note that the Polish government has indeed publicly announced a possible reduction in assistance to Ukrainian refugees. In October 2023, a representative of the Polish government, Piotr Müller, in an interview with the PAP agency, said that the decisions determined by the law on assistance to Ukrainians would probably lose force in the first quarter of next year and expressed the hope that “there is simply no need to continue them”. However, as of now, the Polish government has not announced that from January 1 all payments to Ukrainian refugees will be stopped.

By spreading such fakes, propagandists want to quarrel between Poles and Ukrainians, as well as to arouse mistrust of Ukrainians not only in the Polish government, but also in the Ukrainian one. Detector Media has repeatedly refuted other fakes involving Poland. The large number of Russian propaganda fictions about this country is due, among other things, to the high level of support for Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

Propagandists spreading pro-Russian rhetoric on anonymous telegram channels disseminated information that supposedly in Lutsk law enforcement officers exposed the activities of a drug laboratory in which, according to them, servicemen of the 14th separate mechanized brigade worked. It's fake.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found out that in the fake, propagandists refer to the original article from the Volyn News website for November 9, 2023. It says that on November 8, the Volyn region police exposed the activities of drug laboratories. However, firstly, this article makes no mention of the military personnel of the 14th separate mechanized brigade. Secondly, propagandists claim that the laboratories were exposed in Lutsk, although the head of the department for combating drug crime in the Volyn region, Oleh  Zubko, stated that the searches were carried out in the Zhytomyr and Kyiv regions. Thirdly, none of the sources confirms the involvement of servicemen of the 14th Mechanized Brigade in the identified laboratories.

They also found several publications in other media about this National Police operation, and none of them mentioned soldiers from the 14th Separate Mechanized Brigade.

Propagandists spread such manipulations to discredit the Ukrainian armed forces. They say that soldiers cannot survive what they saw in the war and integrate into Ukrainian society. Detector Media also refuted other fakes with a similar message, including that the military was allegedly buying up antidepressants en masse.

Propagandists spreading pro-Russian rhetoric on social networks claim that Volyn residents supposedly need to collect at least 200 liters of blood for the wounded in the 14th brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fighting near Kupiansk. The regional media Volyn Post allegedly wrote about this. However, it was discovered that the data was fake, and speculation about “colossal losses” was not confirmed.

Analysts from the VoxCheck project drew attention to the case. They found out that in early November, VolynPost actually published an appeal for Volyn residents to donate blood to support military personnel. In particular, the Volodymyr Territorial Medical Association reported that the Volodymyr department of transfusion assistance really needs donor blood of all groups and the Rh minus factor. However, the original message did not indicate the blood volume or weight of the donor, and the screenshot of the news was edited.

In fact, the donor may weigh at least 50 kg, not 200 kg as stated in the fake message. In addition, the minimum dose size for blood collection from one donor is 450 ml, and this figure does not indicate the real need of the military. Therefore, the conclusions about “400 wounded” and “colossal losses” are unconfirmed.

The VoxCheck experts note that the donation system works more efficiently when donors donate blood regularly, and not just in case of emergency. Currently, Ukraine has a system of planned donation to maintain a sustainable level of blood supplies. The need for donated blood may vary depending on the circumstances, so the Ministry of Health, the Ukrainian Transplant Coordination Center and blood centers may use different communication mechanisms with citizens.

Propagandists spread such manipulations to create the false impression of Ukraine's failure on the battlefield. All this in order to force Ukrainian society to agree to end the war on Russia’s terms.