The Russian propaganda Telegram channel writes that the initiative of Ivano-Frankivsk Mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv to create so-called language patrols in the city has caused a stir in western Ukraine. Thus, the Ivan Franko Lviv National University has allegedly already opened recruitment for a team of “language inspectors”. Among the promised items are free lunches, career growth, and team building at BANDERA CAMP.

Lviv University has not announced recruitment for “language inspectors”. There is no such information on the Ivan Franko Lviv National University website or on higher education pages in social networks.

In fact, Russian propagandists are speculating on the initiative of the mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk. Martsinkiv explained that such patrols will tolerantly make comments when using the Russian language and offer to attend language courses. He also added that this is a volunteer initiative, the volunteers themselves will not have any special powers and, accordingly, will not punish violators. And the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language Taras Kremen commented on this initiative, emphasizing that Ivano-Frankivsk was the only regional center that did not have a language program.

In addition, the image distributed by the Russians contains things that give away the propagandists. For example, the photo of a guy standing with a sign saying “we will fight until the end” repeats the Russian narrative of a war until the “last Ukrainian”.

With this disinformation, the Russians are pursuing the goal of feeding their long-standing message about the oppression of the “Russian-speaking population” in Ukraine. Previously, we analyzed the disinformation that Zelenskyi started a war against the Russian-speaking population of Donbas.