Fake The lie that more than 60% of “foreign mercenaries” in the Ukrainian Armed Forces return home with disabilities
Information is being spread online that more than 60% of foreigners who fought in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly received serious injuries during military operations between August 6 and October 1. As “proof”, propagandists are adding infographics with the Statista logo, which show data on the share of “foreign mercenaries” who allegedly received disabilities, broken down by country. The data chronologically coincides with the Ukrainian Armed Forces operation in the Kursk region. Finally, under the infographic, it is written that the source of the data is the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American think tank specializing in the study of modern armed conflicts, in particular, Russian aggression against Ukraine.
However, in reality, this infographic was most likely fabricated. This is reported by the StopFake project. First of all, Statista is a German online platform specializing in collecting and visualizing data. Although they do track events in Ukraine, Statista has never published this infographic. StopFake journalists were unable to find any information about “foreign mercenaries” in Ukraine on their website or in their social networks.
StopFake also contacted the ISW think tank to find out whether it had published data on the number of foreigners who had suffered while fighting for Ukraine. Evan Moore, ISW's deputy director for international relations, responded to StopFake's request by saying that the statistics distributed online were not prepared by ISW and do not reflect its assessments and views. All ISW materials are available on official resources.
“We are aware of graphics created by third parties that purport to reference the Institute for the Study of War to promote information and/or assessments that ISW did not produce”, a spokesman for the think tank said.
Russian propaganda regularly spreads disinformation about so-called foreign mercenaries in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Yes, we previously analyzed fake information about bonuses for Russian soldiers for the elimination of “foreign mercenaries” in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.