Propagandists in Russian media are actively spreading information that New Year's sweaters with the inscription “The Last Ukrainian” have appeared in Ukrainian stores. They say that Ukrainians “have completely come to terms with their role as ‘cannon fodder’”. However, this is fake.

The specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. Based on the distributed image, they found out that the propagandists tried to fake the page of one of the large online stores in Ukraine - Rozetka. It is important to note that this screenshot does not contain any detailed information that would allow such an “ad” to be verified: neither the seller, nor the name of the product, nor its price are indicated.

The StopFake specialists also analyzed the Rozetka pages in detail in search of a similar sweater and did not find a single product with the inscription “The Last Ukrainian”. An image search using various search engines also yielded no results. Therefore, it is likely that such an image was created using a graphics editor and was disseminated to support one of the Kremlin’s disinformation narratives.

A similar narrative about the “last Ukrainian” has been spreading in Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In particular, Russian President Volodymyr Putin expressed the idea that the West is ready to fight with Russia at the hands of Ukrainians to the last Ukrainian. By this, propagandists want to show that Russia is waging a war not with Ukraine, but with the West, and therefore the advance of Russian troops is not as rapid as it should be. On the other hand, the purpose of this narrative is to show that the Ukrainian government treats its people as a resource that is not valued and is thoughtlessly thrown into pre-lost attacks.