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.