Russian media broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric are disseminating information that the ex-Minister of Defense of the United Kingdom, Ben Wallace, allegedly stated the need to lower the conscription age. As Russian propaganda notes, they are going to resort to such measures due to the alleged “complete failure of the Ukrainian Armed Forces summer counteroffensive”. And this will be a continuation of the “Western policy” of killing a large number of Slavs associated with the Ukrainian and Russian sides”. This is manipulation.

The case was investigated by the fact-checker of the StopFake project. They established that Russian propaganda refers to a column by Ben Wallace published in The Telegraph. Wallace didn't actually write about the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive or the need to draft 16-year-olds and “throw them into a meat grinder”. On the contrary, he noted that Ukraine will win this war, and the allies must increase the pace of assistance.

Ben Wallace writes that Putin is mobilizing all of Russia, and in Ukraine the average age of soldiers on the fronts is 40. “So, as Britain did in 1939 and 1941, perhaps it is time to reassess the scale of Ukrainian mobilization”, Wallace said. It was this quote that Russian propagandists used to create manipulative news.

Thus, Russian propaganda continues to promote the narrative that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is a failure, and the West will indeed destroy Ukraine. Previously, we described the message that the European Union benefits from Ukraine’s defeat in the war.