Russian and Belarusian propaganda resources are disseminating information in a coordinated manner on social networks, trying to present the Ukrainian Armed Forces as using the “human shield” tactics in the Kursk region. These accusations are based on the statements of an unnamed Russian soldier without any confirmation. This means that it is not true. This is what the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security writes.

The “human shield” message is typical of the Russian army, which has repeatedly used civilians in the occupied territories as cover since 2014. For example, in December 2023, the Ukrainian prosecutor's office opened a criminal case on the use of Ukrainian prisoners as a “human shield” in the Zaporizhzhia region. This is another attempt by Russian propaganda to shift the blame for its crimes to the Ukrainian side.

The purpose of disseminating disinformation about the alleged use of civilians in the Kursk region by the Ukrainian military as a “human shield” is to discredit the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the international arena and to increase hostility towards Ukraine among the Russian population and its presence in Ukraine to shift attention to the numerous war crimes committed by Russian troops, accusing the Ukrainian side of such crimes.

Pro-Russian sources are distributing a photo of an announcement in Ukrainian, which states that the National Police headquarters in Kharkiv Oblast is looking for Carlos Maria Mallarino and Héctor Santiago Trujillo. Russian propagandists are commenting on the photo of the announcement, claiming that two “Colombian mercenaries” have deserted from the Ukrainian army.

In fact, this information is not true. The Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kharkiv region did not put these two people on the wanted list - there is no such information on their official website or on their social media pages. The ad also contains punctuation errors. And the photo of the ad is distributed mainly in the pro-Russian segment of the network. Considering the listed facts, it can be argued that the ads were presumably forged by propagandists.

This fake feeds the Russian narrative about the presence of “foreign mercenaries” in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In addition, by spreading such disinformation, the Russians speculate on the topic of desertion in the Ukrainian army.

Earlier, we analyzed the Russian propaganda that a group of foreign mercenaries of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was allegedly “liquidated” in the Briansk region.

Propagandists are distributing an interview with a Ukrainian prisoner of war in the media, who allegedly heard threats from his commanders to “shoot him in the back”. However, this is disinformation. This is written by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security.

Its experts remind us that, firstly, prisoners are forced under pressure to talk about what the occupiers demand, including confessing to false crimes or making other false statements. The Russians practice torture and murder of prisoners, grossly violating the laws of war. Secondly, methods similar to Stalin's blocking detachments have been restored in the Russian army, where Kadyrov's Akhmat units perform this function. Back in March 2022, the SBU released an intercepted conversation of a Russian militant who admitted that their task was to hold back retreating Russian soldiers. Thus, Russia is again using the “repulse” tactic, accusing the Ukrainian side of its own crimes.

The purpose of spreading this disinformation is to undermine Ukrainians’ trust in their military command and state institutions, to raise doubts about the professionalism and morality of the Ukrainian army, and to sow divisions in society. Such tactics help Russian propaganda to shape the image of Ukraine as a state with a chaotic military, where there is supposedly brutal treatment of subordinates by commanders. It also serves to justify the brutality of the Russian army by projecting its own practices onto the enemy.

A supposed advertisement from the Ukrainian Women's Watch organization is being distributed in the pro-Russian segment of social networks, which talks about military training courses for women. The “advertising banner” shows a woman in a military uniform and in the background is a photo of a monkey sitting behind the wheel of a car. And the slogan is: “Women's two-week military assistance courses - even a macaque can be taught to drive!”

However, this advertisement is not real. We checked the image from the Telegram channel using a special tool FotoForensics, which establishes the fact of interference in the image. For example, Photoshop or other photo or video editors. Therefore, it was possible to establish that the photo distributed by the propagandists contains signs of editing. Moreover, no Ukrainian media published such an advertisement. Just like on the organization's website, we did not find any information about such an advertisement.

Women in armed conflicts are one of the most vulnerable social groups. Some researchers call Russian aggression a war for gender order, a gendered confrontation, because Moscow is fighting for so-called traditional values, which imply the triumph of patriarchal practices and the leveling of gender equality. Hostile propagandists depicts a dissolute and full of feminists, prostitutes and the emasculation of the “true male essence”. Ukraine, according to propagandists, was once part of the famous “Russian Gothic”, but, having become Europeanized, adopted the destructive practices of gender equality.

Read our study on the Russian dimension of Russian misogyny: The shell of a femina with black content. How Russian propaganda is trying to discredit Ukrainian women.

The news was spread on social networks, in particular on the propaganda Telegram channel Niezależny Dziennik Polityczny, citing the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform. The fake news states that 500 volunteers have been recruited for the Ukrainian Legion, which is being formed in Poland, but there is not a single Ukrainian among them.

“Ukraine needs to quickly gather enough people to form a battalion. Ukraine is doing everything to recruit foreigners to fight”, the propaganda correspondence said.

However, the fake news repeated the context of the news. In fact, the point is that as of early November, more than 500 applications from 30 countries had been submitted to the Ukrainian Legion, a military unit that is currently being formed in Poland among Ukrainian volunteers living abroad. In fact, the decision to create the Ukrainian Legion, which will be prepared with the assistance and support of the Polish Ministry of Defense, was announced following the signing of a security agreement between Ukraine and Poland on July 8 in Warsaw.

That is, only Ukrainian volunteers living abroad are signing up for this unit. There is no talk of any “recruitment of foreigners”.

Russian propaganda systematically feeds the narrative that professional military personnel from other countries are fighting in Ukraine — so-called foreign mercenaries.  In this way, Russian propaganda also tries to justify the failures of the Russian army. They say that they are not fighting weak Ukrainians, but “specially trained NATO soldiers” or Americans. Moreover, Russian propaganda throws in such fakes to show that there is no one left to fight in Ukraine and they are recruiting “anyone in sight”.

By the way, in our Newspeak column we reported that it is Russia that is recruiting mercenaries, in particular Wagner representatives. This is essentially a terrorist organization within the Russian army.

Let us recall that Niezależny Dziennik Polityczny is a fake resource created solely to spread propaganda messages that are beneficial to Russia.

Read also: The lie that Polish media reports about half a million fallen Ukrainian soldiers.

Anonymous propaganda Telegram channels are actively distributing an ad about a “50% discount” on one boot for veterans of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with a disability allegedly established by Ukrainian sellers. However, this is fiction, and the photo with the ad has been edited.

This is what experts at the Center for Countering Disinformation say. They note that this type of disinformation is aimed at manipulating citizens' emotions in order to cause indignation and despondency among Ukrainians, especially among those who actively support the military and help the wounded. Through targeted fakes, Russian propagandists are trying to portray Ukrainian society as not appreciating its heroes, as absolutely false and manipulative.

Such propaganda can also sow discouragement among international partners providing financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Propaganda seeks to convince both external and internal audiences that support for veterans is weak and their needs are ignored. This not only undermines unity within the country, but can negatively affect Ukraine’s reputation in the world. At the same time, such manipulations reinforce stereotypes, portraying Ukraine as a country that allegedly despises its heroes, which in a war situation is a dangerous tool for psychological influence on society.

Russian anonymous Telegram channels have spread information about the detention of a volunteer at a checkpoint in the Sumy region, allegedly with more than 100 kg of drugs that were supposed to be received by Ukrainian soldiers from the 82nd Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The propagandists used a photo of a pickup truck with drugs from the X social network. However, this is not true.

This was discovered by experts from the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. They found out that the photo used for the fake really does refer to a report from the US Border Service. And the drug shipment mentioned in the fiction was seized in Texas, not in Ukraine.

The purpose of such information manipulations is to discredit the Ukrainian military and volunteers in the eyes of the international community, which undermines support for Ukraine at the international level. Such fakes create the impression of corruption and criminal activity among Ukrainian defenders and volunteers, aiming to cause mistrust among partners and donors providing assistance to Ukraine. Such disinformation campaigns are part of Russia's strategy aimed at undermining the unity of international support and the attitude towards Ukraine as a reliable partner in the fight for security and democracy.

Russian propaganda Telegram channels are distributing a video in which a friend of a Ukrainian soldier, who was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage, 3rd degree, allegedly shows the state's assistance to the family of the deceased. The video says that the family was given toothpaste, antiseptic, seasoning, and a sheet. The man in the video concludes that this is not the kind of assistance that the family actually needs.

However, this is a fake, the VoxCheck project writes. Despite the fact that the order shown in the video is real, the aid shown in the video was unlikely to have been provided by the Ukrainian authorities. After all, among the items shown, there is not a single one that was produced or sold in Ukraine. For example, OraLine Bubble Gum toothpaste for children is produced and sold in the USA. The antiseptic is also not available for sale in Ukraine, but can be ordered from the UK. The manufacturer of the bed sheet is the Finnish company Sakupe, its products are also not available for sale in Ukraine.

Accordingly, it is unlikely that the Ukrainian authorities would purchase household items, such as toothpaste or bed sheets, from foreign companies to help the families of fallen defenders. Perhaps these items were transferred to Ukraine as humanitarian aid, and propagandists passed it off as state support for the families of fallen soldiers.

Families of Ukrainian soldiers killed at the front receive a one-time payment of 15 million hryvnia from the state. If a soldier died during his service, but not during combat, his relatives receive financial assistance in the amount of 750 subsistence minimums. As of January 1, 2024, the subsistence minimum is 3,028 UAH for able-bodied individuals. That is, the family of a fallen soldier receives almost 2.3 million hryvnia. However, this amount may change with the change in the subsistence minimum. These amounts, 2.3 or 15 million, are equally divided between all members of the deceased's family. The following are entitled to receive the funds: the parents of the deceased; one of the spouses who has not remarried; children under 18; dependents.

Also, families of missing soldiers, in addition to maintaining monthly payments for the soldier (official salary, salary for military rank, allowances for length of service, other monthly additional types of monetary support), are provided with an additional payment, which was assigned to the soldier for participation in military operations, in the amount of 100 thousand hryvnia. The family is deprived of such payments if the soldier voluntarily surrendered, deserted or arbitrarily left the military unit or place of service.

We have previously recorded similar fakes from Russians. In particular, they spread disinformation about a dead Ukrainian soldier buried in an anonymous grave, as well as about the alleged theft of personal belongings of a Ukrainian soldier at his funeral.

On October 29, the Russian FSB announced that a group of foreign mercenaries of the Ukrainian Armed Forces had allegedly been “liquidated” in the Briansk region. At the same time, the saboteurs were allegedly found to have a Canadian flag and a prayer book in Polish. However, this incident raises many questions. In particular, Kremlin political scientists claim that Russia is thus looking for grounds to involve North Korean troops in the war. The official interpretation, however, looks unconvincing.

The Kremlin justifies the deployment of North Korean troops by citing a treaty with Pyongyang, but that treaty was only ratified on October 24. Meanwhile, Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security released a video confirming the presence of North Korean soldiers in Russia on October 18, as well as this explanation.

The incident can be seen as yet another step in Russia’s disinformation campaign aimed at justifying its aggression and spreading propaganda to domestic audiences. The Kremlin is trying to present the war not only as a conflict with Ukraine, but also as a fight against Western mercenaries. Such tactics allow the authorities to create the appearance of a broad international conspiracy against Russia and attract popular support, including by justifying increased repression and mobilization. This message is also part of a broader information context in which Russian propagandists regularly try to attract more foreign participants to the conflict, including countries seeking to maintain neutrality.

Propagandists are actively distributing video materials from Ukrainian sources on anonymous Telegram channels, in particular, a video of Ukrainian servicemen of the 15th Brigade of the NGU Kara-Dag, where they evacuate the wounded from the combat zone under fire. Russian propaganda presents this video as evidence of the alleged retreat of Ukrainian troops from Selydove, disseminating information about the transfer of the city under Russian control. However, this is not true.

This was indicated by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. Its specialists emphasize that, according to the representative of the NGU Ruslan Muzychuk, Selydove remains under the control of Ukrainian forces. At the same time, Ukrainian units are holding back Russian attempts to advance from the north and east. Such information leaks are aimed at demoralizing the Ukrainian military and creating a false picture of the situation in order to sow doubts among the population and undermine confidence in Ukraine's defense efforts.

Such disinformation campaigns are also part of a broader Kremlin strategy that includes discrediting the Ukrainian military and distorting the real situation on the front lines, trying to justify Russian aggression as “protection” of civilians.

The National Security and Defense Council's Center for Countering Disinformation has recorded a significant increase in the scale of Russian disinformation, in which propagandists promote false messages about the alleged deliberate killing of civilian Ukrainian soldiers. In particular, they are actively distributing an unverified drone video, using it to support their claims. This video does not contain specific information about the direction of the shelling, the circumstances of the events, or the identity of the participants, which makes these claims dubious.

The purpose of such disinformation is to create a false image of Russian military personnel as “defenders” of the civilian population of the temporarily occupied territories and to divert attention from the real war crimes recorded there. Russia is trying to justify its aggression by using these information leaks to discredit the Ukrainian military and strengthen the negative image of Ukraine among the local population and the international community.

Propaganda Telegram channels are spreading the message that Ukrainian soldiers from the 61st Separate Mechanized Brigade are “committing atrocities” against civilians in Kursk and “bragging” about photographs of the tortured on the Internet.

But in fact, the original publication talks about Russian atrocities in one of the villages that was liberated by the fighters of the 61st Separate Mechanized Brigade. To create a fake, the real message was edited.

In fact, the original publication is a message from October 13, 2024 on the Facebook page of the educational project of the analytical center CASE Ukraine “The Price of the State”. The description of the project states that it explains to Ukrainians “how much the state costs them and what their taxes are spent on”.

The message noted that the photo shows the aftermath of Russian crimes in one of the liberated villages (the location is not specified). The 61st Separate Mechanized Brigade took control of this settlement. Its fighter took a photo of the dead tortured by the Russians. The post then included a gathering for the brigade. There is no mention of the Kursk region in the text. The Russians changed the original publication.

A video is being distributed in Russian social networks, showing military equipment located along the road. The publication indicates that it supposedly belongs to Ukraine, it was hit in the Kursk region, where it remains.

But the video does indeed show Russian equipment that Ukrainian troops captured in 2022. OSINT analysts geolocated the location of the video recording to the village of Myrnoye in Donetsk region. And the video itself has a watermark from one of the Russian propaganda Telegram channels. When the video was published on the channel, it was simply captioned as “a cemetery of Ukrainian armored vehicles destroyed in the zone” and did not mention the Kursk region.

And the OSINT analyst EjShahid actually established that the video was filmed in the village of Myrne in the Donetsk region. It is located at a great distance from the Russian-Ukrainian border. The analyst confirms that the video shows captured Russian tanks.

Ukrainian troops broke through the Russian border in the Sumy region on Tuesday, August 6. On August 12, President Zelenskyi wrote directly for the first time that Ukraine was conducting an operation in Russia's Kursk region. On August 12, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that Ukraine controlled almost 1,000 km of the Kursk region. As of August 21, 93 settlements in Russia are under Ukraine's control.

Russian sources, citing a certain “news story”, are spreading information that the Colombian government is planning to restrict the showing of TikTok videos from Ukraine due to the “romanticization of war” and “propaganda of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”. Thus, the video story says that TikTok videos from Ukraine allegedly create a distorted romanticized perception of war among Colombian youth, which allegedly encourages them to join the International Legion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces en masse.

However, this information is fake, writes the StopFake project. The video clip that the Russians are distributing is fabricated. The attackers used the corporate style and logo of the Colombian publication City Noticias TV to create the fake, but did not take into account that the publication publishes content not in English, but exclusively in Spanish. There is no such clip on the media’s website or social networks. There is also no similar news on the Colombian websites of the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications and the Ministry of National Defense, as well as on any authoritative Spanish-language or English-language media.

Finally, the “facts” in the video contradict reality and common sense. For example, the story claims that the average age of Colombians joining the Ukrainian army has dropped from 22 to 18 due to the influence of TikTok. However, this is highly unlikely, since 18 is the minimum age to join the International Legion.

On the contrary, most Colombians in the Ukrainian army are veterans with combat experience – this was written about by a number of publications that studied the motivations of Colombian citizens to join the International Legion. Accordingly, such experienced fighters are encouraged to join the war with Russia not by a romanticized perception of the war, but by decent financial compensation.

Previously, we recorded a number of Russian propaganda leaks on the topic of Colombian citizens in the ranks of the International Legion. For example, we analyzed the fake that the body of the fallen Colombian fighter Michael Ramirezi Fino from the International Legion was allegedly returned to his family “without internal organs”.

Russian sources are spreading information about alleged “atrocities” by Ukrainian soldiers from the 61st separate mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region. The propagandists write that a Ukrainian serviceman allegedly “bragged” online about a photograph depicting “tortured peaceful resisting residents”.

However, this is a fake. The Center for Countering Disinformation found the original message, and it turned out that it had a completely different context. Russian propagandists made certain manipulations with the real correspondence, changing its text in a photo editor and, finally, presenting it as the real one.

The purpose of the fake is to present Ukrainian military personnel in a negative light. That is, it is about discrediting Ukrainian soldiers, in particular those carrying out combat missions in the Kursk region. Earlier, we documented a fake that Ukraine allegedly created “concentration camps” in the Sumy region.

Propagandists are spreading information that a mutiny has occurred in the 116th separate mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near Kupiansk. In addition, they claim that the unit has lost its combat capability, as a result of which it was allegedly withdrawn from the combat zone. The enemy's messages say that the military refuses to follow orders, and relatives are raising money for lawyers to help the detained fighters avoid punishment. However, this is fake.

This was reported by specialists from the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council. They checked this information among the military command and confirmed that these statements were fictitious. The brigade continues to carry out combat missions in a certain area of responsibility and acts in accordance with orders.

Such information leaks are part of psychological operations aimed at undermining the morale of the military and distrust of the Ukrainian Armed Forces among the population. Their goal is to destabilize the internal front, cause panic, despondency and discredit the Ukrainian army against the backdrop of active military operations. Such campaigns are also designed to exert emotional pressure on the families of the military in order to cause fear and doubt in the effectiveness of the armed forces. The enemy uses disinformation as a weapon to weaken Ukraine's defense, so it is important to trust only verified sources of information.

A video of Ukrainian servicemen packing up their belongings is being circulated in the Russian segment of social networks. Propagandists claim that the video is allegedly evidence of “looting” by Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region.

“The villagers are robbing the Kursk region. The Nazis cannot do otherwise”, users comment.

But using image search tools, StopFake fact-checkers discovered that the video of soldiers packing their belongings was published on September 15 on the channel of a Ukrainian serviceman from the 58th separate motorized infantry brigade.

Also in the description of the video the location is indicated - Donbas. From the following videos on this channel one can see that the military is moving to another place.

Russian propaganda accuses Ukrainian troops of looting for many reasons - both to discredit the image of the Ukrainian armed forces and to distract attention from the problems with looting among Russian soldiers, which have repeatedly proven themselves guilty.

Anonymous Telegram channels are discussing the reaction of the Ukrainian leadership to a previously published article by The Wall Street Journal, which states that the number of killed Ukrainian soldiers allegedly reaches 80 thousand, and the wounded - 400 thousand. At a meeting with journalists on September 20, 2024, Volodymyr Zelenskyi denied such information.

“80 thousand? That's a lie. The real figure is significantly lower than what was published. Significantly”, Zelenskyi said.

WSJ journalists also reported that it is difficult to determine the exact number of dead and wounded in the Russian-Ukrainian war, since Russia and Ukraine refuse to publish official estimates or publish ones that “many do not trust”. And they formed their figures based on unnamed sources familiar with the situation in Ukraine.

Russian propagandists used this information drive and spread reports that Polish journalists also decided to conduct their own assessment of the dead and came up with a figure of up to 500 thousand killed Ukrainian soldiers.

“The more Ukrainian soldiers, and especially those from the western regions of Ukraine, die, the easier it will be for Poland to take back what already belongs only to it,” the propagandists who allegedly commented on the “results” of the study on Polish radio reported.

But this is just a Russian fake. No major Polish media outlets have come out with such news - and even with the help of a reverse Google search - using the key phrase “500,000 wojskowych zabitych na Ukrainie” (500 thousand soldiers died in Ukraine) there are no similar publications.

As for the phrase on Polish radio, it was also made up, because there were no “results”  of the study. Moreover, the quote that the propagandists cite was only published in the segment of Russian and anonymous telegram channels. That is, official sources did not confirm this: and the quote itself is a set of Russian rhetoric about “Poland taking the western part of Ukraine”.

Information about the dead is sensitive information that the Kremlin's minions are trying to speculate on, playing on the mood of Ukrainians. Due to the extremely inflated figures from the propagandists, it may seem that the war has no end and soon no one will be fighting. In general, such figures cannot be genuine; even the Ukrainian authorities can adjust some constant figures, for example, only deny the WSJ material, since it is currently impossible to establish the real number of dead during the active phase of the war.

Let us recall that in February of this year, the Ukrainian president reported the number of 31 thousand fallen Ukrainian soldiers over two years of the great war.

A pro-Russian resource has spread information that an advertisement for Ukrainians to join the Ukrainian Legion has been placed in a Polish aid distribution center in Lublin. It says that an Apple iPad tablet will allegedly be raffled off among those who join the Ukrainian Legion. As proof, the propagandists publish a corresponding image.

In fact, no reliable Polish or Ukrainian media outlet reported the existence of such an ad. A search for this photo using Google's reverse image function also yielded no results.

In the Polish city of Lublin, on Defenders' Day, October 1, 2024, a recruiting center of the Ukrainian Legion really opened. However, neither the Ukrainian Legion website nor the social networks of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine contain information about the Apple tablet raffle. Probably, propagandists simply made up this news, reacting to the opening of the first recruiting center of the Ukrainian Legion abroad.

Previously, we analyzed Russian manipulation, saying that Ukraine is recruiting mentally unstable foreigners.

Russian sources are spreading messages online that during military operations in the Pokrovsk direction, the 152nd separate ranger brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly disappeared along with its commander. The publications write that Ukrainian soldiers are disappearing en masse, and their relatives cannot obtain any information about the fate of their loved ones.

In fact, this is fake. The Center for Countering Disinformation verified this information with the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and reported that the 152nd Brigade continues to carry out combat missions, and the statements about its “disappearance” are unfounded.

Such fakes by Russians are aimed at sowing panic among Ukrainian society, causing mistrust of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and demoralizing Ukrainian soldiers and their families. We previously refuted information that the 128th separate mountain assault brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly abuses mobilized soldiers.

Propagandists regularly create videos to discredit Ukrainian military and volunteers, as well as to demoralize society. This time, due to comments in various channels and groups, they are massively distributing another fake, which was noticed by specialists from the NotaYenota project. This is a short 46-second video, filmed in vertical format with the logo of the Yedyni Novyny (The Only News) telethon. It tells the story of a 70-year-old pensioner who was allegedly beaten for refusing to provide Ukrainian soldiers with potatoes. They say that because of her decision, the military will go hungry. The video states that she “rudely refused”, spoke Russian and complained about low pensions and high prices.

However, such a video was not available on any media outlet included in the United News telethon. The logo is used to give the video authority, to create the impression that this is reliable material. Propagandists often use logos of well-known media outlets to create the illusion of truthfulness. This video plays well on emotions, but it does not contain any specific information - neither the name of the pensioner or the volunteer who allegedly beat her, nor any mention of potatoes. The police did not report such incidents, and the video consists of blurry footage where it is impossible to identify a single person. Such fakes deliberately simplify the situation, causing an emotional response and forcing people to invent details. The video recalls that the State Bureau of Investigation allegedly opened a criminal case, although this is not true, since the State Bureau of Investigation only has jurisdiction over officials, law enforcement officers and war criminals.

Propaganda thus tries to create an image of cruel and heartless soldiers or volunteers, allegedly attacking civilians. This is aimed at undermining trust and support for the defenders of Ukraine, in particular among the population that provides them with assistance. The fake is also intended to exacerbate hostility between different groups of the population - volunteers, soldiers and civilians. This division contributes to the weakening of unity, which is a key component for defending the country in war. By spreading fake stories about conflicts within society, propagandists try to demoralize citizens and create a sense of hopelessness. Such videos are used to sow doubt and pessimism, creating the impression of disorder in society. The use of fake stories with emotional triggers, such as the beating of a pensioner, is aimed at causing indignation and negative emotions, which contributes to the faster spread of disinformation among people. The Kremlin is also trying to portray Ukraine as an unstable state where social conflicts are taking place, which can affect the international community and reduce the level of support from other countries.

Propagandists claim on anonymous Telegram channels that Ukraine allegedly created concentration camps in the Sumy region, and these camps contain not only Russian civilians captured in the Kursk region, but also local Ukrainians, allegedly “awaiting the arrival of the Russian army”. However, this is a fake.

The Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council writes about it. Its specialists found out that Russian sources came up with different versions to explain the purpose of these camps. Among them are the use of civilian prisoners as human shields, their forced participation in demining minefields or for creating staged videos. At the same time, Russian propaganda does not provide any evidence to support its claims.

The purpose of this disinformation is to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine and distract attention from the war crimes that Russia itself is committing in the occupied territories, including forced measures to filter out civilians and kidnap children. Such fakes create a false impression of events in Ukraine and try to justify Russia's actions by manipulating fears and distracting from responsibility for its crimes.

Russian propaganda resources are spreading reports that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) allegedly detained employees of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR MO) who were trying to enter Russia from Lithuania. The goal of the Ukrainian intelligence officers was to “gather information about border security and kidnap a child”.

In fact, this information is not true. This was reported by the Center for Countering Disinformation after verifying this news. They also added that Ukrainian intelligence does not use such methods, and this statement is another provocation by Russian special services.

The purpose of the fake is to discredit Ukrainian intelligence officers and demonize them in the eyes of ordinary Russians, because in addition to “collecting information”,  they allegedly also wanted to “steal a child”. Earlier, we wrote about eight fake chats that copied the official “Main Intelligence Bot”.

Russian propagandists are spreading manipulative messages that Russian aviation allegedly destroyed a UAV train in Zaporizhzhia. Russian media, citing the alleged words of the spokesman of the Operational-Strategic Group of Forces “Tavria” Vladyslav Voloshyn, claim that the Armed Forces of Ukraine allegedly confirmed the “liquidation of the UAV production workshop”. This is reported by StopFake.

In fact, Russia has really stepped up terror against the civilian population of Ukraine's frontline cities - dozens of airstrikes are carried out daily on Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Sumy, Kherson, Odesa and other populated areas. Schools, playgrounds, residential buildings and hospitals often fall under these indiscriminate attacks. Russian occupiers have modernized guided aerial bombs (GAB), allowing them to attack cities located deep in the rear. On September 27, 2024, on the air of Novosti.Live, the press secretary of the Tavria Operational-Strategic Group of Forces, Vladyslav Voloshyn, commented on the modernization of Russian aerial bombs, but made no statements about the destruction of “UAV workshops”. Voloshyn noted that Russia continues to destroy Ukrainian frontline cities, striking the civilian population. He also noted that it is very difficult to shoot down guided air bombs and Ukraine should focus on destroying the enemy's rear airfields and its aircraft. This requires long-range weapons.

Russia's airstrikes in Ukraine can be considered war crimes falling under the jurisdiction of international courts. In this context, on March 5, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for the commander of Russia's Long-Range Aviation Serhii Kobylash and the former commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet Viktor Sokolov for attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine.

Propaganda is trying to create the false impression that the Ukrainian military will suffer serious losses due to Russian airstrikes. Fakes about the destruction of “UAV warehouses” and “drone production workshops” help to present Russia as an effective force capable of carrying out pinpoint strikes on important Ukrainian Armed Forces facilities. By claiming that Ukrainian speakers allegedly confirm Russian successes, the Kremlin is trying to raise doubts about the veracity of Ukrainian reports and sow mistrust among Ukrainian citizens and the international community. The spread of false reports about allegedly massive strikes on important facilities in the rear can also sow panic among the population, undermine morale and create a sense of danger even far from the front line. Fake reports about the destruction of military infrastructure can be aimed at weakening Western support for Ukraine, making them doubt the advisability of providing further assistance.

Information is being spread on social networks that the Ukrainian energy company, the Sumyoblenergo joint-stock company, allegedly promises to leave without wages those workers who refuse to donate blood to the soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The publications include a photo of an announcement stating this.

“Ukrainians are forced to donate blood for the Zeus members who defend the independence and security of Ukraine in the Kursk region. And if they don't donate, they won't get paid…” - this is how the fake news scammers describe the situation.

StopFake specialists analyzed the case and contacted Sumyoblenergo with a request to confirm or deny this information. The company's press secretary stated that the ad was fake and indicated where exactly the propagandists had miscalculated. For example, the company does not have such a department as the “personnel department”, since it was this department that allegedly posted the ad.

Propagandists have been systematically spreading fakes and manipulations on the topic of an alleged blood shortage in Ukraine. In this way, the authors of the messages are trying to convince that everything is bad in Ukraine and that there are many wounded who are not receiving adequate care because “there is not enough blood”. We managed to refute several fakes on this topic. For example, one of the fakes said that Ukraine is banning all foreign citizens from becoming blood donors. We also checked the authenticity of a message on social networks about a Ukrainian woman abandoning her husband because he was “transfused with Russian blood”.

Read on Censor.NET: In Ukraine, LGBT community representatives were allegedly banned from “donating blood”

Propagandists are distributing an image on anonymous Telegram channels, which shows a propaganda poster, allegedly placed in one of the Ukrainian public toilets. The poster calls for joining the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and contains the provocative inscription “Don't piss yourself - join the Armed Forces of Ukraine”. However, this is a fake.

The poster looks evenly placed on the wall. However, paying attention to the overall plane of the image and the corners, you can see that the poster is too perfectly positioned on an uneven surface (in particular, the curvature of the walls). This may indicate that it was added using a graphics editor. The poster in the photo also does not have natural shadows that would fall from it onto the wall. This may be one of the key indicators that the image was superimposed on the photo using Photoshop or another image editing program. The lighting in the room does not match the appearance of the poster surface. The entire plane of the photo has a natural blurriness and low quality, which may be due to the poor quality of the camera. However, the poster looks too clear and bright against the background of the overall interior. Such a contrast may be a sign that the poster was inserted into the image in post-processing. In toilets, such materials quickly deteriorate from moisture or physical impact (dirt, damage), but the poster looks new, which also raises doubts. After all, the phrase “Don't piss yourself - join the Armed Forces of Ukraine” is a tracing from Russian, which is almost never used in official recruitment advertising for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. A search for news about such a poster in the Ukrainian media, as well as this image on other resources, did not yield any results.

The aim of the fake is to discredit mobilization campaigns in Ukraine. The image is used to ridicule patriotic agitation and recruitment efforts into the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It attempts to provoke a negative reaction from the audience, especially people who may be sensitive to subtle provocations and emotional manipulation.

Anonymous propaganda telegram channels are spreading a statement by a former Ukrainian MP that the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have allegedly already exceeded half a million people. This figure is confirmed by the state of cemeteries in large cities. However, such claims are unfounded.

This was reported by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. Its experts emphasize that this former MP has long been known for his provocative and false statements, regularly used by pro-Russian propagandists. In particular, in September 2024, the man spread lies that “the Ukrainian authorities are allegedly downplaying the number of victims” after a missile strike on a military school in Poltava. In July, he claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi was allegedly preparing a bloody provocation to save US President Joe Biden. In April, the former MP spread a fake about Russian missiles allegedly hitting a military unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which was allegedly located in a hotel in Chernihiv.

Propagandists try to use such information, especially inflated figures of Ukrainian Armed Forces casualties, to demoralize Ukrainian society and create disillusionment about the army’s ability to defend the country. This fake news also aims to accuse the Ukrainian leadership of hiding real losses and failing to effectively manage the army. Russian propaganda uses such statements to strengthen support for the war among Russians, claiming that the Ukrainian army is allegedly suffering catastrophic losses.

Propagandists are spreading information on anonymous Telegram channels that a Ukrainian special forces unit consisting of “mercenaries”, including thousands of fighters from the American private military company Forward and hundreds of units of equipment. However, this is a fake.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security draws attention to this. Its experts have found out that this story is yet another fictitious Russian fake, which is part of a long-term information campaign trying to promote the image of “NATO mercenaries” allegedly participating in military actions on the side of Ukraine. Russian propaganda has been actively using these fabrications since 2014 to create a myth that Ukraine is under the external control of NATO and Western countries.

In reality, Forward Observations Group is a tactical gear and medical supplies company founded by American veteran Derrick Bales. This company has nothing to do with military operations in Ukraine. It is called a “private military company” only by Russian disinformation agents.

The Kremlin uses such fakes to impose the idea that the war in Ukraine is not simply Russian aggression, but a confrontation with the entire West, in particular NATO. This helps mobilize support among the Russian population, making them believe that Russia is defending itself from foreign anger. The spread of fakes about “Western mercenaries” helps Russian propaganda explain its military failures. The successes of the Ukrainian army are often portrayed as the result of help from “all-powerful” Western forces, rather than as achievements of the Ukrainian military. The Kremlin also constantly tries to portray Ukraine as a state that is unable to independently resist Russia and needs “mercenaries” for support. This is part of the narrative about the weakness of the Ukrainian army and the alleged “external control” of the country.

Propagandists claim in the media that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) allegedly shoot prisoners of war, abuse civilians, shell residential buildings in the Kursk region, and also create concentration camps in the border regions of Russia. However, this is not true.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security draws attention to this. Its specialists have found out that propagandists have been spreading similar fake statements about the “crimes” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for years, but they have no evidence. In reality, the Ukrainian Armed Forces act in accordance with international law and strictly adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Not a single Russian fake about the “atrocities” of the Ukrainian military during the entire war has been confirmed by any independent investigation or international organizations. In addition, Russian prisoners of war held in Ukraine have all the necessary rights and are treated in accordance with international norms.

Russian propaganda is trying to create an image of Ukrainian soldiers as criminals and punishers in order to undermine international support for Ukraine and justify Russia's aggression. Such fakes are also aimed at inciting aggression and hatred among the Russian population towards Ukrainians, stimulating support for the so-called “special military operation” and attracting new volunteers to the war. The spread of such fakes helps Moscow distract attention from its real crimes in Ukraine, in particular, mass murder of civilians, torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mariia Zakharova has once again stated that in Kursk Oblast, Ukrainian soldiers are allegedly “at gunpoint” driving Russian civilians into “concentration camps”. Russia's permanent representative to the UN Vasyl Nebenzia made an identical statement. He also added that “from 70 to 100 civilians were subjected to violence in the basements of the Sudzhanskyi boarding school”.

In fact, this information is not true, as reported by the Center for Countering Disinformation.

With this fake, Moscow is trying to shift the focus of attention from the Russian filtration camps that have been massively created by Russians in the occupied territories of Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war, thereby violating international humanitarian law. However, no fakes of Kremlin propaganda absolve Russia of responsibility for its war crimes.

The Center for Countering Disinformation adds that with the help of “filtration measures” the Russian occupiers identify disloyal people and intimidate Ukrainian civilians. Many of those who did not pass the filtration ended up in Russian prisons, were subjected to torture, etc.

Earlier, we recorded a fake story that allegedly “mercenaries” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces had shown extreme cruelty towards residents of the Kursk region.

Russian media have spread information that in Ukraine children's blood was allegedly forcibly taken for the needs of the army. At the same time, such propaganda materials note that this is done by the military themselves, or that this blood is collected for “foreign mercenaries”. The publications are accompanied by a photo of a guy who donated blood in an educational institution - school desks are visible in the background of the photo.

“There have already been cases in history when children's blood was used to support the health of Wehrmacht soldiers. And this practice was assessed during the Nuremberg Trials”, the propagandists write.

VoxCheck fact-checkers analyzed the case and determined that this photo was actually taken on Donor Day, which was held on August 22 in the Vinnytsia region. At that time, a blood collection point was indeed set up in a local lyceum, and the blood collection itself was carried out by a mobile team from the Vinnytsia regional blood service center with the help of local health workers.

A total of 80 people donated blood, local groups write that there were many more who wanted to, but not everyone was able to take part in this procedure due to health reasons. Many photographs from the West were published, among them readers can see the one used by agitprop, but not a single photo shows children, only adults are in line and donating blood.

Propagandists have been systematically spreading fakes and manipulations on the topic of an alleged blood shortage in Ukraine. In this way, the authors of the messages are trying to convince that everything is bad in Ukraine and that there are many wounded who are not receiving adequate care because “there is not enough blood”. We managed to refute several fakes on this topic. For example, one of the fakes said that Ukraine is banning all foreign citizens from becoming blood donors. We also checked the authenticity of a message on social networks about a Ukrainian woman abandoning her husband because he was “transfused with Russian blood”.

Propagandists are spreading information on anonymous Telegram channels that Ukrainian soldiers have stopped being fed, which is why store administrators in Pokrovsk are calling on the military not to rob their establishments, since “people also want to eat”. However, this is fake.

This is what experts from the Center for Counteracting Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council write. They remind us that such fakes are aimed at discrediting the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the eyes of Ukrainian society. Their dissemination is aimed at creating an image of irresponsible military personnel who allegedly violate civil rights. This is an information attack aimed at reducing morale and trust in the defenders of Ukraine, especially in conditions of heavy fighting and temporary occupation of certain territories.

The aim of such fakes is also to cause tension between the military and the civilian population, to portray Ukrainian soldiers as a threat to their own people, undermining the unity of the country in its fight against Russian aggression. In addition, such fakes can influence international perceptions by presenting the Ukrainian Armed Forces in a negative light, which is in line with the Kremlin’s strategy to undermine Western support for Ukraine.

A pro-Russian Moldovan Telegram channel writes that Ukraine is “a testing ground not only for conventional, intelligent and unmanned weapons”. Wounded Ukrainian soldiers are also allegedly transported to Europe as biomaterial for studying the effects of modern weapons on humans and for testing new types of viruses and bacteria that are more resistant to antibiotics. In reporting this, the propagandists partly refer to the material of the British publication The Times.

In fact, the propagandists manipulated an article in The Times titled: “Ukraine war highlights mutated superbugs that can resist antibiotics”. The text tells of the case of a Ukrainian soldier whose leg was amputated at St George’s Hospital in London because antibiotics could not cure his infection, as the bacteria were resistant to all classes of antibiotics. However, the propagandists’ claims that Ukrainian servicemen are being transported to Europe to test new types of viruses and bacteria are unfounded.

At the same time, The Times writes that this is not just a crisis of war zones and distant lands. In 2022, more than 58,000 people in England were infected with an antibiotic-resistant infection, up 4% from the previous year. Moreover, almost 8,000 people die from such infections in the UK every year.

With this message, propagandists feed the narrative about Western biological laboratories in Ukraine. As part of this disinformation campaign, we recorded a number of such leaks. For example, we wrote about the spread of a fake about the invasion of poisonous spiders from American biological laboratories in Ukraine.

Russian Telegram channels are distributing a video that allegedly talks about cases of abuse of mobilized soldiers in the 128th separate mountain assault Transcarpathian Brigade. According to the propagandists, this footage was filmed by one of the brigade's combat medics.

However, the Center for Countering Disinformation, having verified the information in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reported that the disseminated recordings about the alleged cruel treatment of mobilized personnel are another Russian propaganda leak. The Center added that an investigation was conducted, as a result of which no facts were found that confirm the statements of the author of the aforementioned videos.

This fake is aimed at undermining the mobilization process in Ukraine and discrediting the Ukrainian defense forces. Russia shows that the Ukrainian army allegedly treats newly mobilized people badly, thereby trying to reflect the desire of Ukrainians to join the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Earlier, we analyzed the disinformation that Olena Zelenska called on women to mobilize.

Russian Telegram channels are spreading information about the search for armed prisoners in the “Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovohrad regions” who, after signing a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, voluntarily left the military unit. The propagandists add that these individuals, known as the “Dnipropetrovsk maniacs”, are guilty of numerous murders.

However, the information about the escape of these persons is not true. According to the records of the Information Subsystem of the National Police, they are not wanted - this was reported to the Center for Countering Disinformation by the Head of the Communications Department of the National Police of Ukraine Olena Berezhna. In addition, the “wanted announcement” mentions “Dnipro region”, but such a region does not exist in Ukraine, which further indicates that this news is fake.

Also, the persons in question could not sign a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine due to the current restrictions of the Ministry of Defense, the Center for Countering Disinformation adds (persons convicted of murdering two or more people cannot sign a contract and leave prison).

By spreading such disinformation, propagandists seek to discredit the bill No. 11079-1 adopted in May 2024 on the mobilization of certain categories of convicts. Thus, we have previously documented similar fakes. For example, on mobilized prisoners who allegedly sell drugs in the Sumy region.

Propagandists are spreading information that during Russia's missile strike on Kharkiv, facilities of the nationalist Azov battalion were hit, including a shopping center where the military allegedly set up their base. However, this is a fake.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security writes about this. They found out that this is a typical technique of Russian propaganda. Russia deliberately attacks civilian objects in Ukraine, committing acts of terror. Every time a Russian missile hits a hospital, school, shopping center or post office, propagandists claim that it was a “military object” or “Azov base”.

In this way, the occupiers are trying to shift responsibility to Ukraine, claiming that “the Ukrainian Armed Forces are using civilian objects and the population as a “human shield”.”

In fact, on September 1, Russian terrorists deliberately launched a missile attack on a shopping mall, the Sports Palace, and one of the Nova Poshta branches in Kharkiv. According to the city's mayor, Ihor Terekhov, 44 people were injured as a result of the shelling of these facilities, including seven children, the youngest child being only three months old.

Anonymous Telegram channels are spreading a video that appears to show a soldier forcibly evacuating residents of Vovchansk in order to “then freely rob their homes”.

VoxCheck analysts explained that the Kharkiv region authorities announced the evacuation of Vovchansk precisely because of constant Russian shelling and the threat of occupation. In addition, the person in the video is not a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but an employee of the National Police.

The excerpt distributed by the Kremlin's henchmen is part of a video about the evacuation of Vovchansk, which was published on May 23, 2024, on the YouTube channel by the host of Channel 24. It shows, in particular, the evacuation of a family with a child who did not want to leave. In the end, they agreed to temporarily leave the city.

Parents cannot refuse to evacuate their children. Otherwise, they may be subject to administrative or criminal liability for failure to fulfill their child-rearing responsibilities. However, in this case, the priority is the safety of the children, not the punishment of the parents. Therefore, law enforcement officers and local authorities are trying to convince parents or other guardians to leave with their children. In fact, this is also shown in the video – a law enforcement officer explains to the parents why they need to leave.

On May 10, 2024, the Russian army launched an offensive in the north of the Kharkiv region. Due to the threat to the lives and health of local residents, the evacuation of the population from the city was accelerated on the same day.

Against the backdrop of the Ukrainian Armed Forces' operation in the Kursk region, pro-Russian and anonymous Telegram channels began a series of discrediting messages about the military. In particular, one of these is the assertion that the “Kursk adventure” has escalated into “the murder of Ukraine”: as the messages claim, Volodymyr Zelenskyi ordered all forces to be sent to the Kursk region in order to achieve military success there. At the same time, other directions were left “without any military”, which allowed the Russians to advance further.

“Now the Russian army will soon control the entire territory of Donbas, which will simplify the enemy's offensive along this entire front”, the propagandists explain.

In fact, such a thesis is not true, no directions could be left “to the mercy of fate”. In this way, the fake news is trying to convince of the failure of the Kursk operation for the Ukrainian side. It would seem that these are just wasted resources. At the same time, they feed the mood of the domestic audience: if we are talking about an attack on Russian territory, the Kremlin's henchmen find justification for such an attack. They say that the Ukrainian army is already losing, it will soon retreat from the territory of Kursk region; and during this time, Russia will attack other territories.

Although, for example, in Lithuania, they recorded a reduction in Russian ground forces due to the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kursk region of Russia. This was stated by the commander of the Lithuanian army. That is, one way or another, the Kursk operation affected the actions of the Russian troops and there, at least, rotations to other directions are taking place.

Let us recall that Ukrainian troops broke through the Russian border in the Sumy region on Tuesday, August 6. On August 12, President Zelenskyi wrote directly for the first time that Ukraine was conducting an operation in the Kursk region of Russia. On August 12, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that Ukraine controls almost 1,000 km of Kursk region. As of August 21, 93 settlements in Russia are under Ukraine's control.

Anonymous Telegram channels and social networks in the Russian segment are spreading information that after the offensive on Kursk, the Ukrainian Armed Forces' defense in Donetsk region was left without shells and soldiers. This is reported by the American publication The Financial Times.

“The offensive in Kursk has accelerated Russia's offensive in Donbas. This happened because up to 10,000 Ukrainian troops, including elite airborne assault units, were withdrawn from this section of the front. Priority in providing ammunition, as well as soldiers, is given to the Kursk direction, officers transferred from Donbas to Russian territory told FT”, they reported on social networks.

StopFake fact-checkers analyzed the case and determined that The Financial Times article did not say at all that the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defense in Donetsk region “was left without shells and soldiers” after the offensive on Kursk region.

The article emphasizes that due to the Kursk operation, Ukrainian servicemen in Donbas have to ration the amount of ammunition, and soldiers “may face an even longer stay at the front without rotation”. Moreover, this is the conclusion of the authors of the publication themselves, that is, an assumption.

Let us remind you that Ukrainian troops broke through the Russian border in the Sumy region on Tuesday, August 6. On August 12, President Zelenskyi wrote directly for the first time that Ukraine was conducting an operation in the Kursk region of Russia. On August 12, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that Ukraine controls almost 1,000 km of the Kursk region. As of August 21, 93 settlements in Russia are under Ukraine's control.

Read on Censor.NET: The US is allegedly involved in the operation in the Kursk region.

While monitoring the information space, the Center for Countering Disinformation discovered a fake Telegram channel illegally using the name of the 46th Separate Airmobile Brigade of the Airborne Assault Troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

This fake Telegram channel actively spreads false messages aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian military. In particular, the channel spreads manipulative information about the situation on one of the front lines in the Donetsk region.

It is important to note that this channel has nothing to do with the 46th Brigade. Official representatives of the brigade stated this on their official pages, noting that the information on the fake channel is manipulation and disinformation.

The purpose of spreading such fake news is to undermine confidence in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and sow panic among the Ukrainian population. Propagandists are trying to demoralize citizens, raise doubts about the effectiveness of defense and the ability of the military to protect the country. In addition, such disinformation may be part of a broader information war aimed at creating chaos and destabilizing society, which may ultimately weaken national resistance to the aggressor.

Propagandists are spreading information on anonymous Telegram channels that a brand with a trident was allegedly found among the abandoned items at an abandoned Ukrainian military stronghold. According to them, the Ukrainian military uses it to brand civilians. However, this is fake.

It was brought to the attention of specialists from the Center for Countering Disinformation. They found out that this fake has no basis and is an attempt to discredit the Ukrainian army, creating an image of Ukrainian soldiers as cruel executioners. Such statements are part of a large-scale disinformation campaign aimed at inciting hatred towards Ukrainians and justifying aggression from Russia.

This fake is also spread to manipulate emotions and increase hostility towards Ukraine. In addition, propagandists want to create the illusion that Ukrainian troops are not only fighting against Russian troops, but also allegedly pose a threat to the civilian population. Such propaganda is aimed at causing fear and hatred among Russians, increasing support for Russia's military actions and demoralizing Ukrainian society.

In addition, this fake can be used to try to influence the international community by portraying Ukraine as an aggressor, allegedly resorting to brutal methods of war. However, these claims are unfounded, because the Ukrainian military adheres to international norms of warfare. The Ukrainian armed forces do not use and have never used such methods.

Pro-Russian telegram channels claim that Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers carried out a chemical attack in the Kursk region due to the “impossibility of breaking through” Russian defenses. As propagandists write, the Ukrainian military used chemical weapons against Russian positions, violating international law.

However, this is another Russian fake, according to the Center for Countering Disinformation. Propagandists do not provide any real evidence indicating the veracity of this information. In addition, Ukraine is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention and strictly complies with its international obligations on the non-use and non-proliferation of chemical weapons. This fact has been repeatedly confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), operating under the auspices of the UN.

At the same time, it is the Russian so-called “military correspondents” (the same propagandists) who from time to time distribute videos showing the use of chemical weapons by Russian troops against Ukrainian positions, which is a war crime and an outright violation of the laws of war.

Such fakes are part of the Kremlin’s strategy regarding the information response to the events in the Kursk region. The head of the center, an officer of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, Andrii Kovalenko, spoke about this earlier.

Propagandists are spreading information on social networks that mobile crematoriums made in Sweden and Italy have allegedly appeared in Sumy. They say that the Ukrainian authorities plan to use them to destroy thousands of bodies of dead soldiers in the Kursk region. However, this is fake.

This was pointed out by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. Its experts found out that it is Russia that is actively using mobile crematoriums and found numerous evidence of this. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, as of April 2022, 13 mobile crematoria were operating in temporarily occupied Mariupol to destroy the bodies of dead civilians. The use of such crematoria was also recorded in the Chernihiv region and Novoaidar, Luhansk region.

This fake is part of a constant disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Propagandists have been spreading similar messages regularly since the start of the full-scale invasion. Already in September 2023, they were spreading similar disinformation about the alleged “delivery” of 200 mobile crematoria from Germany, which indicates the systematic use of this topic to create fear and mistrust in society.

Such stories are aimed at creating panic and undermining trust in the Ukrainian authorities and military. Propagandists are trying to convince Ukrainians and the international community that Ukraine is allegedly hiding its losses and is ready to take extreme measures to keep this a secret. It also diverts attention from the crimes that Russia itself is committing, in particular the use of crematoria to hide its crimes in the occupied territories.

Russian propaganda is distributing a video on anonymous telegram channels with content in a foreign language, in which a funeral cortege On the Shield with the body of a Ukrainian military man passes through a Ukrainian city. In the video, an order is allegedly heard from a loudspeaker for people to kneel before the hero who died in the Kursk region, otherwise people will be fined for disobeying the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, in reality this information is fake.

This was reported by fact-checkers of the Bez Brekhni (No Lies) project. The video was actually filmed in Ukraine, namely in the Ternopil region, because at the 13th second a table with the name of the street Ruska, 17 appears in the frame. Also, the On the Shield campaign is truly a humanitarian project of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, within the framework of which volunteers help transport the bodies of fallen military personnel. However, the original video was published on the YouTube channel of a local website long before the operation in the Kursk region - on July 17. There is not a single voice notification or orders for citizens. Only sirens and emergency signals can be heard. The military man who was being transported by the motorcade, Valentyn Iliin, died on July 13, 2024 and was not involved in the operation in the Kursk direction.

By publishing such messages, Russian propaganda is trying with all its might not only to spread the message about the supposedly large losses of Ukraine during the attack on the Kursk region, but also to create the effect of hostility and confrontation between the military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the civilian population. In addition, propagandists are also making attempts to depopulate the civilians of Ukraine during the war, presenting them as “slaves” for bending the knee in front of the motorcade. But in fact, the tradition of honoring fallen soldiers on their knees is one of the important parts of the farewell memorial service, as well as a spontaneous gesture of gratitude to the defenders who laid down their lives for Ukraine. This is how Ukrainians honored their fallen heroes at the beginning of the ATO in 2014.

Propagandists are distributing on anonymous telegram channels an image of a postcard on which First Lady Olena Zelenska allegedly calls on Ukrainian women to join the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In fact, this postcard is another fiction.

This was brought to the attention of specialists from the Center for Countering Disinformation, as well as the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. They found out that there were no such materials either on the official websites of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine or on the department’s pages on social networks. Also, this information is not available on the official resources of the Olena Zelenska Foundation.

The purpose of this fake is to discredit the mobilization campaign in Ukraine and Olena Zelenska personally in order to undermine trust in the Ukrainian authorities and cause negative sentiment in society. Propagandists are trying to create the idea that mobilization is so critical that even the First Lady is allegedly involved in calls to join the army. In addition, this is an attempt by Russian propaganda to manipulate Olena Zelenska’s interview with the British media platforms Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, where she commented on proposals to cede territories for the sake of peace and spoke about new war crimes by the Russians. Propagandists use such manipulations to further distort her words and influence public sentiment both in Ukraine and abroad.

Propagandists are distributing information on the social network X, allegedly near one of the hospitals in the city of Sumy, an advertisement was noticed in which the administration is looking for trucks with refrigerators for transporting “oversized cargo”. According to propagandists, these trucks will be used to transport the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers, who “continue to die en masse during attempts by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to attack the Kursk region”. But in fact this ad is fake.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security spoke about this on the telegram channel. Firstly, the contact phone number with the name Dmytro indicated in these advertisements actually belongs to a girl named Daria, Ukrinform fact-checkers have established. Secondly, the photo of the truck posted in the ad was indeed previously published on the website of an online store in Russia. Propagandists simply used ready-made illustrations for a fake ad.

This fake is part of the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign against the actions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the Kursk region. His goal is to discredit the Ukrainian army, spread the message that the operation in the Kursk region is supposedly an absolute failure for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and also to hide the losses and failures of Russia itself on the battlefield.

Pro-Russian telegram channels, in particular Polish ones, are distributing a video allegedly on the phone of a deceased Ukrainian soldier, “demonstrating the tragedy” of the situation at the front. According to propagandists, his own people abandoned him and another seriously wounded soldier: communication was cut off, ammunition was running out. Finally, in the description of the video they add that the recording allegedly clearly shows that the Ukrainian Armed Forces serviceman could not survive due to another betrayal of the command, which abandoned the soldiers to their fate.

However, this video is likely staged. Its author, posing as a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, most likely attached captured chevrons received in battle to his equipment. In addition, the video contains tragic music in the background, which Russian propagandists deliberately added to make the situation that allegedly developed with the “Ukrainian military” more emotional. The video also bears a watermark from one of the Russian propaganda telegram channels, which presumably became the primary source of distribution of the video. This gives additional reason to believe that this is a fake.

Staged video is one of the Russian propaganda tactics. A little earlier, we recorded a similar fake video, one of the messages of which was also “betrayal of command”. In the end, a certain similarity between these recordings is another argument in favor of the artificiality of the above video.

Pro-Russian resources say that this video is proof of the disdain of ordinary soldiers by the Ukrainian high military command. Thus, propagandists are trying to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

• Read on Censor.NET: Russians are filming fake videos about the Kursk region with people dressed in the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - The Center of Countering Disinformation  - Detector Media.

The head of the radiation and biological protection troops of the Russian Armed Forces, I. Kirilov, said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine allegedly use ammunition with the same toxic substances that were used by the Third Reich in the gas chambers of concentration camps. However, this is fake and manipulation.

The Center for Countering Disinformation drew attention to it in its official telegram channel. They found out that this message of Russian propaganda is another attempt by the enemy to discredit the Ukrainian military and justify aggression against Ukraine as a “fight against Nazism”.

Ukraine is a signatory to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons, and therefore adheres to its provisions.

Accusing the Ukrainian Armed Forces of using toxic substances is part of an ongoing Russian campaign of disinformation about Ukraine's creation of a dirty bomb and the presence of American biological laboratories in territory controlled by the Kyiv junta.

At the same time, Russian propagandists systematically publish videos and photos on their telegram channels confirming the gas and chemical attacks of the Russian army on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

For example, according to the Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Support Forces, during May 2024, 715 cases of Russians using ammunition containing dangerous chemical compounds were recorded and documented, which is 271 more than in April.

On July 15, Russian telegram channels were already spreading fake news about the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ plans to use chemical weapons in the Donetsk and Kherson directions.

Russian propagandists continue to spread new disinformation about the operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region. This time, a story began to actively spread on social networks that the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly shot a pregnant 24-year-old woman in front of her husband and little son.

On August 7, a multimillion-dollar Russian propaganda channel published a story that “Ukrainian soldiers” allegedly shot at the car of a pregnant civilian woman who was trying to evacuate with her family from the territory of Sudzha (Kursk region). No evidence was shown that directly indicated the veracity of this news or the involvement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the incident. A few hours later, another telegram channel decided to present an audio telephone conversation with the man of the deceased, in which he stated that he allegedly saw “one AFU military” and “clearly remembered the blue electrical tape on his helmet” before this soldier opened his phone, his and his wife's cars were under direct fire.

Also, immediately after this audio recording, a video was released from the father-in-law of a 24-year-old girl, who decided to remove the damage left on the car after the shelling. However, it is clear that all 4 windows of the car were completely broken, and the glass on all sides was smashed to pieces towards the inside of the passenger seats, which is not natural if the shelling was carried out from one side, as the man stated in a telephone conversation.

Military defeats at the front and, as a consequence, the transfer of hostilities from the territory of Ukraine to the territory of the Kursk region significantly shook up the political elite of the Russian Federation, calling into question many of the myths that propagandists “fed” the entire Russian population for many years.

In addition, according to the Center for Countering Disinformation, the Russian military and political command is very concerned that the fighting in the Kursk region is not accompanied by violence against civilians by the Ukrainian army. Therefore, today Russian propaganda is actively trying to shift the emphasis from the defeats and mistakes of the leadership of their country. on the Ukrainian Armed Forces, creating an external and internal message that the Ukrainian army is allegedly killing civilians in the Kursk region. Thus, on August 12, the Center for Countering Disinformation and the Security Service of Ukraine already warned that the Russians would try to stage war crimes in the Kursk region by dressing in the uniform of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Photos of an alleged advertisement for the Armed Forces of Ukraine with an appeal to join their ranks are being circulated online. It depicts a gray-haired military woman, as well as the supposed inscription: “Son, I need your help”. Propagandists write that this is “a typical Ukrainian mobilized over 60 years old”. This advertising of the Armed Forces of Ukraine seems to call young people to the front.

In fact, this is a photo fake. When checking this image in the FotoForensics tool using ELA analysis (Error Level Analysis), which identifies areas of the image with different levels of compression, it was possible to identify signs of text editing on the advertisement. They are highlighted in bright colors.

With this fake photo, Russian propagandists are trying to discredit the mobilization process in Ukraine. Previously, we refuted information that in Ukraine they are calling on people to mobilize into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as whole families.

Russian propaganda is distributing publications accusing the Ukrainian Armed Forces of war crimes. As “evidence”, the Russians use the stories of people who found themselves in the territories of Ukraine occupied by Russian troops.

These people claim that the Ukrainian military allegedly shelled and looted civilian homes, burned homes, or opened fire on civilians. However, there is no evidence to support these words. This was reported by the National Security and Defense Council Center for Countering Disinformation.

By spreading false statements about “crimes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” on behalf of the population of the occupied territories, Russia seeks to:

- justify the war she started;

- set up residents of the occupied territories against the Ukrainian Armed Forces;

- shift responsibility for the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

The Center adds that in reality it is Russia that is destroying Ukrainian settlements. It is responsible for the humanitarian situation in the occupied territories.

Previously, we have already recorded fake evidence of “crimes of the Ukrainian Armed ForcesЄ. Thus, Russian propaganda accused the Ukrainian military of threatening residents of the occupied territories and extorting intimate services from them, of taking children away from their parents in the Donbas in order to hand them over to pedophiles or organs.

Information is being spread on social networks that the energy company of Ukraine, the joint-stock company Sumyoblenergo, allegedly promises to leave without wages those workers who refuse to donate blood to soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Publications add a photo of an advertisement that talks about this.

“Ukrainians are forced to donate blood for AFU soldiers who defend the independence and security of Ukraine in the Kursk region. And if they don’t do it, they won’t receive a salary…”, this is how the fake makers describe the situation.

StopFake specialists analyzed the case and contacted Sumyoblenergo with a request to confirm or deny such information. A company spokeswoman said the ad was fake and pointed out exactly where the propaganda went wrong. For example, the company does not have such a department as the “personnel department”, because it was this department that allegedly issued the announcement.

Propagandists systematically spread fakes and manipulations on the topic of an alleged shortage of blood in Ukraine. Thus, the authors of the messages seek to convince that everything is bad in Ukraine and that there are many wounded who are not receiving decent assistance because “there is not enough blood”. We managed to refute several fakes on this topic. For example, one of the fakes said that Ukraine prohibits all foreign citizens from becoming blood donors. We also verified the authenticity of a message on social networks that a Ukrainian woman was abandoning her husband because he was “transfused with the blood of Russans”.

Read on Censor.NET: In Ukraine, representatives of the LGBT community were allegedly banned from “donating blood”

Pro-Kremlin resources, citing an alleged resident of the Ukrainian village of Novhorodske, disseminate information that the Ukrainian Armed Forces “threatened civilians, intimidated them, and also took children out without the consent of their parents”. Also, military personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly demanded intimate services from locals.

In fact, there is no real evidence of this. The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine reports that the publication of  “evidence” on behalf of “victims of the Kyiv regime” is one of the tactics of Russian propaganda. Russia cynically uses residents of the occupied territories or even Ukrainian prisoners of war, forcing them to voice absurd “testimony” or “confession” about the alleged atrocities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Therefore, Russian propaganda probably resorted to the mentioned tactics this time too.

The Center adds that in this way propagandists seek to arouse indignation and the illusion of truthfulness among the audience, although the facts presented cannot be verified.

Such “video confessions” are aimed primarily at residents of front-line territories. Propaganda is trying to undermine their trust in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and convince them that the Ukrainian military really “is the main source of threat to the civilian population”.

Somewhat earlier, we analyzed a similar fake, which was that the Ukrainian authorities were allegedly forcibly taking children away from their parents in the Donbas in order to hand them over to pedophiles or organs.

Pro-Kremlin resources are disseminating information that the Ukrainian authorities are allegedly forming “donor squads” from military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Officials allegedly realize that the soldiers “will still be killed or maimed”, so their organs can be taken by “black transplantologists”. In reporting this, propagandists refer to a statement by Russian Foreign Ministry representative Zakharova.

In fact, Russia has been spreading the narrative about the supposed “prosperity of black transplantology” in Ukraine for more than 10 years, writes the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Propaganda broadcasts lies to Western audiences, saying that Ukrainians, including children, are “disassembled” for organs, which are then sold to the West. This narrative began to be promoted especially actively with the outbreak of a full-scale war.

However, the Kremlin has never provided any evidence of this. Russians continue to come up with more and more terrible legends, which are subsequently voiced by officials of the Putin regime. Accordingly, this information dump is another attempt to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine and show that the defense of Ukraine from the aggressor is supposedly just a business, the victims of which are ordinary soldiers.

As part of the Russian narrative about “black transplantology” in Ukraine, we have already recorded a number of fakes. In particular, they denied information about the alleged sale of Ukrainian children for organs, as well as about the alleged US assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine to “preserve donor organs”.

Pro-Kremlin resources are disseminating information that they want to name the Third Separate Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces after the former MP and linguist Iryna Farion, whose life was cut short on July 19, 2024. The corresponding petition has allegedly already appeared on the website of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi. At the same time, the publications of propagandists on the network were accompanied only by a screenshot, without a link to the petition itself. Some netizens were inclined to believe that such a petition is proof that there is supposedly Nazism in Ukraine.

However, information about the existence of such a petition is not true, writes the StopFake project. You can verify this by checking the petition, a screenshot of which is being distributed by propagandists on the electronic petitions website. Thus, on the website of the President of Ukraine, the last appeal is registered under the number No. 22/230908-eп, while in the fake petition it is much larger - No. 22/264840-eп. In addition, it cannot be found either by keywords or by serial number.

The creators of the fake news are speculating on the conflict between Iryna Farion and the Azov regiment and the Third Separate Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which took place back in November 2023. Then, in the “Randevu” (Rendezvous) program, presenter Yanina Sokolova asked Iryna Farion what to do with Russian-speaking soldiers from the Azov regiment and the 3rd assault brigade, who communicate in Russian, in particular in battle, noting that it would be unfair to call them supporters Russia. The linguist said she “categorically does not accept” this. “This question is for them. What is stopping you, guys, when you are so strong and very smart, what is stopping you from fulfilling Article 29 of the law on the Armed Forces of Ukraine? Do you know what discipline is in the army? If the army doesn’t have discipline, then there is no army, it’s rabble then”, Farion said.

The purpose of this fake is demoralization and emotional split in Ukrainian society, which condemned the cynical murder and united around the search and punishment of its perpetrators.

Russian propagandists are spreading claims that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have allegedly mined several dams and bridges in Odesa and that blowing them up will lead to mass death of the population. They say that this is the usual tactics of the Ukrainian Armed Forces before retreating from a populated area. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the Center for Strategic Communications and Security drew attention to it. They found out that such information is cyclically repeated by Russian propaganda on similar objects in different regions of Ukraine. The Ukrainian armed forces do not plan to retreat from Odesa, and the information about the mining is fake.

Such fakes have already been used by the Russians to justify their missile attacks on critical infrastructure. Also, Russian propaganda has repeatedly announced the “mining” of hydraulic structures in the Kharkiv region. Namely, the Russian occupiers at one time blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station, which led to an environmental disaster in the Kherson region.

The purpose of disseminating such disinformation is to create panic among the population, undermine trust in the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and also justify Russia’s aggressive actions. Such fakes are used to legitimize attacks on civilian infrastructure and prepare public opinion for possible terrorist acts by Russia.

Propagandists disseminate information in the media and social networks that the military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are allegedly taking away transport from medical services, public utilities, police and civilians for movement around Kupiansk. They say that this is a justification for the Russian army’s attacks on the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine. However, this is fake.

The Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council drew attention to it. Its specialists checked the information at the Kupiansk city military administration and found out that this was not true. All special equipment of utility companies, police and medical services is indeed used exclusively for peaceful purposes, in particular to eliminate and restore the consequences of shelling by Russian troops.

Propagandists spread such fake news for several reasons. Firstly, they want to use them to justify attacks on civilian targets. Such messages also attempt to create a negative image of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by accusing them of violating the rights of civilians. In addition, the dissemination of this information helps to instill fear and mistrust among the local population towards Ukraine. In general, such propaganda aims to demoralize Ukrainian society.

Propagandists distribute on anonymous telegram channels, which in Ukraine want to create a memorial military cemetery in each region. They say this was reported by the acting Minister of Veterans Affairs Oleksandr Porkhun. Russian propaganda claims that they are already preparing 100 thousand burial places in the traditional way, and 60 thousand using the columbar method. This gives grounds to estimate the real number of war victims on the Ukrainian side. However, this is manipulation.

In fact, it is about creating a National War Memorial Cemetery. for the burial of all veterans. Deputy director of the relevant government agency Yaroslav Starushchenko said in a commentary to Interfax-Ukraine that all veterans will be buried in this cemetery, and not just those who died in battles since the full-scale invasion. This includes veterans who will die many years after the end of their service but will still have combat status. In addition, the war memorial cemetery does not provide for the burial of civilians who did not participate in hostilities.

The idea of creating a memorial cemetery was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in October 2022. In August 2023, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the implementation of the project in the Hatnenska Community near Kyiv. The first phase of construction should be completed by the end of 2024, and the complete completion of the complex is planned for 2027.

Propagandists spread false information about this idea to create panic among the population and lower their morale. They seek to show that Ukrainian military casualties are so high that new cemeteries are needed in every region, even though official data suggests otherwise. In this way, they are also trying to sabotage support among the population for the continuation of the fight and disrupt the mobilization process in Ukraine.

Propagandists are disseminating information on anonymous telegram channels that “at least 13 soldiers from the 123rd brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have died, and approximately 80 are in critical condition after an outbreak of an unidentified gastrointestinal infection”. However, this is a Russian fake, which has been repeatedly refuted by the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

The sanitary and epidemic situation in the Kherson region is stable and controlled. No outbreaks of acute intestinal infections or food poisoning have been registered. Additional information checks conducted by local and national health authorities confirm that no cases of mass disease among military or civilians were recorded in the Kherson region.

The spread of such fakes is part of an information war aimed at destabilizing the situation in Ukraine, undermining trust in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and creating panic among the population. This step is a standard propaganda tactic used by the Russian side to discredit the Ukrainian authorities. They say that Kyiv neglects real problems and does not think about its military.

Pro-Kremlin telegram channels are spreading information that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are going to use chemical weapons against the Russian military. The means of attack will supposedly be chlorine trifluoride. The product of the reaction is a heavy gas. And the first symptoms of the victim are chest pain, dizziness, nausea and headache.

However, information about the preparation of a chemical weapons strike is not true. This was reported by the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council. The Russian side does not provide any evidence of this “news”. In addition, Ukraine, as a signatory to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons, strictly adheres to its obligations.

At the same time, it is the Russians who have repeatedly violated the Convention, which Russia has also signed, by using chemical weapons against the Ukrainian military. The so-called “z-military correspondents” published the red-handed video on their pages.

With this fake, propagandists aim to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the world community and weaken its support from Western allies. Russian propaganda uses deflection tactics, accusing Ukraine of the crimes of its own army.

Anonymous telegram channels are distributing a video where supposedly Ukrainian soldiers are standing near an aerial bomb. One of them affects what provokes the explosion. It is not true.

VoxCheck analysts explained that after the explosion of such a projectile, it is unlikely that the device on which the video was recorded could have been preserved. Moreover, the video was edited using the “explosion” effect from Instagram’s suggested effects.

A reverse search of the explosion frame can find other videos that have the same explosion effect. This effect is available to all Instagram phone users.

Pro-Russian sources are disseminating information that the United States is allegedly using hallucinogenic drugs, in particular ketamine, on Ukrainian military personnel. In asserting this, propagandists refer to the corresponding article by The Economist.

However, this information is untrue, write experts on the VoxCheck project. Thus, The Economist did publish an article about the use of ketamine therapy by Ukrainian fighters. However, it was primarily about military personnel with neurological or psychological problems caused by injuries or experiences in war. At the same time, there is no mention in the material that the United States is promoting the spread of ketamine therapy in Ukraine or elsewhere. That is, neither in this article nor in other reliable sources there is information that Ukrainian clinics, at the direction of the United States, are testing ketamine or other psychedelic drugs on Ukrainians.

The Economist story cites the story of Ihor Kholodylo, a military psychologist and medic who, as a result of being wounded, began to stutter and was unable to speak clearly, and also had increased anxiety and nightmares. According to him, ketamine therapy was the only remedy that helped him cope with the trauma and get rid of the mentioned problems.

Also, according to Ukrainian legislation, ketamine is a psychotropic substance whose circulation is limited. In this case, the drug can be used as a medicine. Now in Ukraine one can get services using ketamine therapy in a number of clinics, but in none of the cases are we talking about testing the drug on patients. One can check information about clinical trials on the website of the State Expert Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. The list of clinical trials conducted or ongoing in Ukraine does not include ketamine.

Previously, we analyzed a similar fake of Russian propagandists, which consisted in the fact that Time magazine allegedly published an article in which it was said that the Ukrainian military was “pumped up” with ketamine before the battle.

Pro-Russian telegram channels are disseminating information that in Vovchansk the Russian army allegedly seized an aggregate plant, leaving on a “starvation ration” the Armed Forces of Ukraine, holed up in high-rise buildings in the city center.

However, this information is not true, according to the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Speaker of Kharkiv Operational and strategic grouping of troops Yurii Povkh said on Radio Svoboda (Liberty) that the Russian military remains blocked at the aggregate plant. He added that other Russian forces are trying to get through there, making attacks, but to no avail - the Ukrainian Defense Forces are repelling them.

Earlier, military observer and coordinator of the Information Resistance group Kostiantyn Mashovets claimed that about 200 Russian military personnel were surrounded by the Vovchansk aggregate plant after attempts to cross the Vovcha River.

On social networks, pro-Russian resources are spreading information that students of the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture will build fortifications for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As “proof” of this, propagandists add a photo of an advertisement that allegedly appeared within the walls of the university and claim that these are the results of the “unsuccessful” Global Peace Summit, which took place on June 15-16, 2024 in Switzerland. However, this is fake.

Ukrinform specialists report that the ad was fabricated in a graphic editor and written with grammatical errors without a specified date. To create the fake, propagandists used a photograph that first appeared in 2012 on the social network VKontakte, which is banned in Ukraine. In a comment to Ukrinform, representatives of KNUCA noted that the unreliability of the publications also confirms that the student groups indicated in the “announcement” really do not exist in the educational institution.

This fake is aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian education system, including in the eyes of future applicants from the temporarily occupied territories who would like to receive an education in the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture. Previously, we analyzed a fake report about the mobilization of 1000 students of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. 

On social networks, pro-Russian resources are spreading information that students of the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture will build fortifications for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As “proof” of this, propagandists add a photo of an advertisement that allegedly appeared within the walls of the university and claim that these are the results of the “unsuccessful” Global Peace Summit, which took place on June 15-16, 2024 in Switzerland. However, this is fake.

Ukrinform specialists report that the ad was fabricated in a graphic editor and written with grammatical errors without a specified date. To create the fake, propagandists used a photograph that first appeared in 2012 on the social network VKontakte, which is banned in Ukraine. In a comment to Ukrinform, representatives of KNUCA noted that the unreliability of the publications also confirms that the student groups indicated in the “announcement” really do not exist in the educational institution.

This fake is aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian education system, including in the eyes of future applicants from the temporarily occupied territories who would like to receive an education in the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture. Previously, we analyzed a fake report about the mobilization of 1000 students of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

Propagandists are distributing videos on anonymous pro-Russian telegram channels with allegedly Ukrainian soldiers shooting African mercenaries for desertion. Poor quality shows two men in military uniforms with blue armbands and four men kneeling against the wall. However, this video is fake.

StopFake specialists drew attention to it. They suggest that the video was created by Russian propaganda to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Fact-checkers found that although the Ukrainian language is used in the video for authenticity, the men in the frame are unable to hide the fact that they are not native speakers. Instead of “ne” in the phrase “not sitting”, the man in uniform says “nie”, and before the shot he shouts: “Zakinchui” (“Finish them!”), which is a direct translation of the Russian “Konchai!” - a phrase that is not inherent in Ukrainian in this context. In addition, not a single face is visible in the video, and not a single chevron can be seen on the military. Although at first glance it appears that the filming is taking place in a basement, the room actually has doors and windows. It seems that they were deliberately covered with fabric for filming.

In the end, after the so-called “execution” the video was blurred, but it is still noticeable that the brick wall in front of which the men were kneeling did not receive any damage. The brick is quite fragile and after so many shots, debris and dust should appear.

This is not the first time Russians have resorted to whataboutism, a propaganda tactic that helps divert attention away from Russia. StopFake experts suggest that the video was created by Russian propaganda to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Thus, Russian propagandists are spreading false information about arbitrariness in the Ukrainian army, thereby distracting Russians from the crimes. According to Ukrainian legislation, foreigners who join the Armed Forces of Ukraine are not mercenaries, and desertion in the army is punishable by imprisonment.

Pro-Russian resources write that Ukrainian Armed Forces are allegedly beating people with artillery and causing fires on the left bank of the Dnipro. As a result, they allegedly destroy crops in the Kherson region. Moreover, Ukrainian FPV drone operators allegedly aim them at utility workers and ambulances. In asserting this, propagandists refer to Saldo, a collaborator.

In fact, the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not resort to terrorist attacks on the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region. This is what the Russian army is doing, write the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.

For example, the head of the Kherson regional military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, reported that on the evening of June 8, 2024, the Russian military dropped explosives from a drone onto an ambulance: “In one of the settlements of the Belozersk community, the occupiers dropped explosives from a drone onto a medical team rushing to a call. The driver was diagnosed with a blast injury and concussion. The paramedic was not injured”.

Ukrainian FPV drone operators send their “birds” only to the manpower of the Russian Army, its military equipment, fuel depots and fortifications. The Center adds that the statements disseminated by collaborators are another campaign to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine in front of residents of the occupied territories who are under an information blockade. Previously, we analyzed the Russian message, supposedly “Kherson is waiting for Russia”.

Pro-Kremlin media are disseminating information that the Ukrainian military allegedly attacked a residential building in Kryvyi Rih in order to provoke another tragedy.

However, in fact, Russian propaganda creates such cynical fakes after each Russian shelling of Ukraine, according to the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Moscow Institute of Industrial Property.

On June 12, 2024, it was Russia that carried out a terrorist attack with an Iskander-M missile on a residential area of Kryvyi Rih, resulting in the deaths of nine people. As of the morning of June 14, the number of wounded increased to 37 people, including 5 children. In addition, as a result of the Russian terrorist attack in the city, 41 apartment buildings, a gymnasium and two colleges were damaged.

The head of the city's Defense Council, Oleksandr Vilkul, said in his telegram channel that June 14 has been declared a day of mourning for the victims in the city. Previously, we refuted the information that the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly occupied kindergartens and hospitals in the Kharkiv region and were preparing to flood Kharkiv.

A video allegedly produced by the environmental organization Greenpeace is being circulated on social networks in the Russian segment. It says that Ukrainian air defense poses a danger to a rare species of bird - the white-tailed eagle.

In 2024 alone, air defenses allegedly mistakenly shot down 138 individuals, confusing them with enemy drones. As a result, they say in the video, the population of rodents on which eagles feed is rapidly growing in Ukrainian fields, which harms the harvest. The video also includes a “quote” from British military expert Jonathon Riley, who seems to accuse Ukrainian air defense operators of inexperience.

StopFake fact-checkers analyzed the case and found that Greenpeace did not publish such a story - this can be checked by searching the organization’s website using the keywords “Ukraine”, “eagles”, etc. There are no videos on the project’s Instagram and Facebook pages.

It is most likely that the propagandists edited this video themselves.

A video is being circulated online in which Ukrainian soldiers allegedly shoot mercenaries from Africa. In the video itself, one can see what appears to be Ukrainian soldiers and four men kneeling against the wall.

The Center for Countering Disinformation reports that this video is staged, because the video was first distributed in the Russian segment of social networks. Subsequently, propaganda media circulated the video.

Fact-checkers of the Central Police Department add that those “being shot” are standing in front of a brick wall, from which bullets should ricochet, which would be dangerous for the “shooters” themselves. That is, this may indicate the likely use of footage and special editors to create a characteristic video.

Russian propagandists are disseminating information in the media according to which Ukrainian soldiers are allegedly “zombified” before battle and taught to “experience the joy of killing”. Propagandists claim this is evidence of “cruel training methods” in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They say that the so-called “zombification” of soldiers takes place during training sessions in Kyiv, which are conducted by an expert in combat psychology, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. However, this is manipulation.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that Grossman explained his methods during training on a Ukrainian television channel, answering the question whether every soldier is capable of killing the enemy on the battlefield. He noted that modern training methods make killing almost a conditioned response, and the reaction of most people to this radiation is joy. However, after a fight, moral doubts may arise, which are then rationalized.

Propaganda is trying to negatively influence the image of the Ukrainian army, spreading this and similar myths, trying to blame the West and, in particular, NATO for everything. Thus, they want to show the conditional “higher morality” of Russia and justify its crimes against Ukrainians.

Pro-Russian telegram channels are disseminating information that on the night of May 28-29, 2024, the Russian army launched a Kinzhal missile at the Yavoriv test site in the Lviv region. As a result, many servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as foreign instructors, allegedly died.

However, this is a fake, they write at the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. At the time indicated by the propagandists, Russian missiles did not fly into the territory of the Lviv region. In addition, on the night from May 28 to May 29, an air raid alert was not announced in the Lviv region (with the exception of the period from 20:17 to 20:31 on May 28, but no launches were recorded). Also, the Lviv Air Force, which reports a hit during air raids, did not record any strikes on any infrastructure within the region. No hits were recorded in the International Peacekeeping Center or the military departments of partner countries.

As of May 30, 2024, the last time missiles flew into the airspace of the Lviv region was on the night of May 26, but they subsequently disappeared from radar. Subsequently, on the night from May 31 to June 1, six missiles hit three critical infrastructure facilities in the Lviv region. However, from May 27 to May 31, no missiles were recorded in the airspace of the Lviv region. Previously, we refuted information that 180 foreigners were allegedly killed near Lviv by Russian missiles.

On social networks, in particular Threads, a photo is being circulated that allegedly shows data from the “leaked” Reserve+ database. It contains information about 1 million people, and it seems to be already being sold on the black market.

In fact, this is a fake photo, write experts from the VoxCheck project. If one carefully examines the screenshot, one will notice inaccuracies indicating that the “leaked Reserve+ database” is fake.

For example, in the “military rank” column one can see such ranks as “sergeant major”, “warrant officer” and “senior warrant officer”, but they were abolished long ago in Ukraine; a different list of ranks has been in effect since October 2020.

Also, the “table” contains an error where it says “lifetime”. Even if this is really a mechanical error, then in Ukrainian the correct word will be “service life”. There are also errors in design. For example, the name of a military unit is indicated in different ways: both together with the instruction “military unit” and only the unit code. Some surnames are written entirely in capital letters, while others are not. There is also a sharp transition between the column with names and phone numbers.

In the end, according to the tax identification number, fact-checkers from VoxCheck found that some of the people on the list are over 60 years old, and accordingly, they do not need to update the data, because they have been removed from the military register. This can be checked using the Public Services Portal and entering the identification code from the table. It is also unclear why the addresses and phone numbers were blurred, because if the data is true and has already been leaked to the darknet, then there is no point in hiding it.

Pro-Russian telegram channels publish a video on behalf of the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), in which the center’s analysts allegedly discovered a new reason for the ineffective counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces: addiction to online games. In particular, the video is about online casinos. Allegedly, every third Ukrainian military man who has a phone has one or more profiles on different online casino platforms. Also, the material and messages from Russian propagandists provide “statistics” of Ukrainian losses from Russian drones due to gambling addiction.

However, this information is fake, according to the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council. This video is not available on the official pages of the Institute for the Study of War. Accordingly, the statistics and information contained in it also do not correspond to reality, because they were invented by Russian fake news. Moreover, this is not the first time that Russians have spread disinformation on behalf of the American ISW. Thus, earlier we analyzed the fake news that the Institute for the Study of War seems to be predicting a rapid advance of Russians in the Kharkiv region and an assault on the regional center.

Propagandists are distributing on social networks a quote allegedly said by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi, commenting on the situation at the front: “The Armed Forces of Ukraine are not retreating. The earth is round, so we are advancing behind enemy lines”, said Syrskyi. In fact, this is another invention of Russian propaganda.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi did not make such statements. On May 23, he stated about the situation in the Kharkiv region that after the first minor successes during the offensive battles in the region, the enemy “was completely immersed in street battles for Vovchansk and suffered very heavy losses in the personnel of the assault units”. In addition, according to him, the enemy is now deploying reserves in different directions, trying to “support active assault operations, but to no avail”. Offensive actions were also being carried out on other sectors of the front, but nowhere in his statements did Syrskyi say that propaganda was being spread.

Propagandists spread such fakes to discredit the Ukrainian army and its leadership, as well as to distort the real situation at the front.

A video allegedly filmed by Ukrainian soldiers burning an effigy of former US President Donald Trump is being circulated on social networks. The military claims in the video that Trump delayed the provision of US military aid to Ukraine and “must pay for it”.

VoxCheck analysts explained that the videos are mainly distributed by Russian propaganda telegram channels and pro-Russian accounts on various social networks. At the same time, there are no such publications in the Ukrainian media.

And the assertion that the Ukrainian military is in the video is unfounded - someone could dress in a similar uniform and attach a chevron with the flag of Ukraine to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The Kremlin media writes that an incident occurred in Ukraine involving a Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier - he allegedly entered a church and began attacking parishioners, and then attacked the priest himself. As evidence to the messages, they add videos from inside the temple.

“Most likely, Bandera is a follower of yet another satanic teaching, which is now flourishing in Ukraine due to the connivance of the authorities. For obvious reasons, there are many such Satanists in the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, adds the pro-Kremlin resource.

StopFake fact-checkers write that no authoritative media reported such an incident anywhere. There were no reports of any attack on the official websites of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Kyiv Patriarchate or the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, where such an incident could have occurred. Also, specialized religious media, such as the Religious Information Service of Ukraine, did not write anything about such an incident. There is no information about such an attack on the police website.

So, most likely the video is staged.

Russian telegram channels are distributing a video that allegedly shows dead Ukrainian soldiers mobilized in different cities of Ukraine 3-4 days before they died.

However, after analyzing this video, the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council discovered that it was a fake. In fact, the video was directed and edited by Russian propagandists in order to discredit the mobilization process in Ukraine.

Firstly, the supposedly dead “mobilized” military clothes are too clean and there is no blood on their uniforms. Secondly, the image quality shows that the video was shot on a professional camera and not on a phone. In addition, it is impossible to determine the location of the shooting. There is also the possibility that the sounds of explosions in the background are superimposed on a separate soundtrack.

In the end, mobilized Ukrainians first undergo training before being sent to the front, the Center adds. Previously, we analyzed a fake propaganda video that the Russian military allegedly captured a pregnant Ukrainian soldier.

Propagandists are spreading information on social networks that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg allegedly called the Ukrainian Armed Forces military “cannon fodder”. However, this is not true.

VoxCheck project specialists found that Stoltenberg did not say this. They found the speech that the Russians are quoting. The Secretary General voiced these theses at a press conference with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on April 23, 2024. His words were taken out of context.

In his speech, Stoltenberg did not call the Ukrainian Armed Forces military “cannon fodder”. At the same time, he said that NATO countries must pay a certain price, that is, provide assistance to Ukraine in order to live in a safer world. Stoltenberg noted the need to support Ukraine. In his opinion, this is an investment in the security of other countries that are threatened by Russia.

NATO officials say the organization was created for defense, not to participate in wars. Although NATO does not intervene in the war with Russia, NATO member countries condemn the aggression and provide assistance to Ukraine.

Propagandists spread such fakes to discredit Ukraine’s Western partners and devalue the Ukrainian authorities. They say that NATO does not send its soldiers to war, but “uses” Ukrainians for its own whims. They say, therefore, Ukraine should follow the road with Russia.

Pro-Russian resources are spreading messages that say, “against the backdrop of the successful advance of Russian troops in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are seizing kindergartens and hospitals, and they plan to put Kharkiv itself under water”.

However, this is fake. The Defense Forces do not use objects protected by international law for military purposes. This was reported by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.

Typically, Russian propaganda broadcasts such fakes in anticipation of planning the next massive attack by Russians against civilian targets on the territory of Ukraine, the Center adds.

In addition, with the help of collaborators, this is not the first time that Russians have spread lies about the blowing up of a dam by the Ukrainian military and the flooding of Kharkiv. This stuffing can be launched as informational preparation for the next crime of the Russians.

Previously, we denied information that the State Emergency Service was calling on residents of Kharkiv to evacuate.

Pro-Kremlin media write that the Ukrainian military allegedly watched the “victory parade” en masse in Moscow on May 9. It is reported in the reports that such information was spread by the American publication Wired in its video.

Analysts of StopFake note that the thesis about the Ukrainian military, who en masse watched the Victory Parade in Moscow, is simply an invention of Russian propagandists.

After all, there are no publications with such content on official pages in social networks. That is, the video is compiled. Moreover, journalists did not even publish such textual material. For example, a request for the keyword Starlink on the publication's website does not yield any news about the parade in Moscow.

Propagandists accused the Ukrainian military of plagiarism. They began to spread information that the Third Separate Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly used the words of the self-proclaimed Russian President Volodymyr Putin in its recruitment advertising. When publishing this “news”, Russian propaganda adds a photograph of an advertisement for the brigade with the words “Why do we need such a world if there is no Ukraine there?” and Putin's interview with almost identical words.

After disseminating this information, StopFake checked whether one of the Ukrainian Armed Forces brigades actually took Putin’s words for their advertising campaign. They found out that the propagandists themselves added a “quote” to the advertisement, accusing the Ukrainian military of plagiarism.

A reverse image search on TinEye showed that the photo distributed by propagandists appeared online in late April 2024 on the French news site France24. On the website one can see that it was taken by Reuters correspondent Alina Smutko on April 23, 2024 in the Kyiv metro. The original is also available on the Reuters photo bank with a full description. The original photo is different from the one used by Russian propaganda. Putin's quote was added to the image in the photo editor. In the original photograph, completely different words are visible: “Zazhyhai (ignite) in the third assault brigade” (zapaliui - in Ukrainian).

StopFake also ruled out the possibility that the photo used by the propagandists could accidentally show advertisements in different places of the Kyiv metro. If one compares the details of the fake photo and the Reuters photo, one can be sure that this is the same image. Looking closely at the wall in the background, one can see the painted elements positioned the same in both photographs.

Propagandists spread such fakes to show the false closeness of Ukrainians and Russians. Like, we think the same and act the same. However, in reality, Ukraine and Russia are completely different.

Pro-Russian users of the social network X (formerly Twitter) are distributing a video in which Ukrainian soldiers allegedly burn an effigy of US presidential candidate Donald Trump with the words: “You will never be president again”.

However, this video is definitive, according to the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. The individuals on it are not military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. These are Russian actors playing Ukrainian soldiers in captured Ukrainian uniforms, the Center adds. These people in the video do not speak Ukrainian like residents of Ukraine - one can hear a strong Russian accent.

On the one hand, the purpose of this fake is to discredit the Ukrainian Defense Forces, and on the other hand, to spoil Ukrainian-American relations and bipartisan support for Ukraine in the US Congress. Moreover, this is happening against the backdrop of the election campaigns of US presidential candidates.

Russian clinical psychologist Svitlana Kolobova stated that according to official data from the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, currently 30% of military personnel at the front suffer from various mental illnesses. She also noted that such estimates may be underestimated, and Ukrainian experts allegedly do not disclose how they identified these psychological problems in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Russian propagandist Volodymyr Soloviov conveyed these statements to himself. However, these statements are unreliable.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to them. There are no data or studies confirming such statistics on the official websites of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and on social networks. The Public Health Center or the National Health Service of Ukraine have also not released any information on this matter.

So far, only statistics are available on the number of military personnel who may face mental disorders in the future, but these data were not made public by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, but by foreign and Ukrainian specialists. For example, in the report “Scars on their souls: PTSD and veterans of Ukraine”, experts from the international analytical center Globsec noted that during the ATO and Joint Forces Operation, about 25% of cases of combat stress turned into PTSD of varying severity, and from 20 to 30% of military personnel. those who received psychological trauma during hostilities were unable to solve them without the help of a specialist. According to these data, the real number of cases of PTSD in Ukraine may be more than 20%.

Propagandists spread such fakes to discredit the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They say they don’t pay attention to this problem, which is becoming increasingly widespread. Russian propaganda stigmatizes the issue of mental health and tries to intimidate the local population.

Pro-Russian resources are disseminating information that in Ukraine it will be prohibited to film and photograph the work of employees of Territorial centers of procurement and social support. According to propagandists, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine asked the Office of the President to adopt such a ban by analogy with the punishment for stopping the work of air defense.

In fact, this information is not true, write experts on the VoxCheck project. The primary source of information is a pro-Russian telegram channel supervised by Russian intelligence services. When spreading the “news” about the alleged initiative to ban the filming of the activities of representatives of the Territorial centers of procurement and social support, they refer to an anonymous “source in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”. It is unlikely that the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported this information to the telegram channel, which is supervised by Russia.

In addition, this “news” was published on December 26, 2023. Then again on January 7th - this time they referred to an anonymous source in the Office of the President. However, as of April 2024, the military or political leadership of Ukraine had not indicated their intention to introduce a corresponding ban. The corresponding bill was not submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. There is no real evidence that this initiative is actually being implemented.

During martial law, it is prohibited to film and publish the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in particular, to transmit information about the location of air defense forces. However, there is no separate ban on filming Territorial centers of procurement and social support employees. At the same time, earlier the people's deputies submitted an amendment before the second reading of the draft law on mobilization, which proposed to enshrine at the legislative level a rule according to which the police and representatives of Territorial centers of procurement and social support will carry out photo and video recording of the process of checking citizens' documents. And on April 16, 2024, the president signed the law. These changes, in particular regarding photo and video recording, will come into force on May 18, 2024.

This fake is part of the Russian information campaign to disrupt mobilization in Ukraine. Read more materials on this topic here.

Propagandists claim that the Ukrainian Defense Forces, according to them, are preventing the evacuation of civilians from the city of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region. Russian media, citing Russian Ihor Kimakovskyi, claim that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are allegedly using people as human shields to stop the Russian offensive. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found that Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region was no exception to Russian propaganda. The invaders systematically destroy the city, shelling every meter of the populated area. Voluntary evacuation of the civilian population there began in 2022; in August 2022, the evacuation of Donbas residents became mandatory, and by March 2023, the Ukrainian military evacuated all children from the city.

As of April 2024, about 700 people remained in Chasiv Yar; by the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 16 thousand people lived in the city. Therefore, speaking in such conditions about the Ukrainian military’s obstruction of the process of saving people is a cynical fake of Russian propaganda. According to Serhii Chaus, head of the mountain military administration of Chasiv Yar, explanatory work is carried out with these people every day, but the main argument for evacuation is the destruction of housing.

“We've actually seen a slight increase in evacuations in recent weeks. Every day the number did not change: one or two, maximum three people, but in fact every day people left... the moment may come when we simply physically cannot do this. We say this openly, we warn people”, Chaus emphasized in an interview with Radio Svoboda (Liberty) on April 15, 2024.

Any evacuation is carried out in close cooperation between the Ukrainian military, volunteers, human rights activists and international organizations, for example, people from the Donetsk region were evacuated under the auspices of USAID. The entire evacuation process takes place openly and under the supervision of Ukrainian and foreign observers. People are transported in organized columns, evacuated families are provided with free housing in safer regions of Ukraine, social guarantees, humanitarian assistance and psychological support are provided.

It is worth noting that Kimakovskyi, used by propaganda to create anti-Ukrainian fakes, cannot be a reliable source of information - a Russian citizen occupies a fictitious “position” in a non-existent “government body” of the temporarily occupied parts of the Donetsk region of Ukraine. In 2015, the Security Service of Ukraine accused a citizen of the aggressor country of spying for Russia. According to Ukrainian intelligence services, Kimakovskyi is an agent of the Russian FSB who collected information about the redeployment of Ukrainian military personnel in the Donetsk region. The Russian was also accused of interfering in the territorial integrity of Ukraine. In 2019, an FSB agent was exchanged for Ukrainian political prisoners, among whom were Oleh Sentsov, Oleksandr Kolchenko, Stanislav Klykh, Roman Sushchenko, Volodymyr Balukh, as well as a number of other illegally detained Ukrainian citizens, including sailors abducted by Russia in the Kerch Strait in November 2018.

Propagandists are spreading another fake about the Ukrainian military in order to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Russian propaganda systematically spreads disinformation about the evacuation of civilians from advanced Ukrainian settlements, traditionally keeping silent about the root cause of the complicated situation - Russian aggression against Ukraine, daily shelling, killings of civilians, destruction of critical infrastructure of settlements.

Propagandists quote Russian Defense Minister Serhii Shoihu, who at a meeting of the Russian Defense Collegium said that the Ukrainian military is fighting in the interests of the war between the United States and Russia. They say that during the full-scale invasion, almost half a million military personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces died. He also noted that during the counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military allegedly failed to achieve the goals that “NATO instructors” set for them, and thus were able to dispel the myth about the superiority of Western weapons. However, this is not true.

Now we do not have an accurately known number of dead, wounded and missing Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers for the entire time of the full-scale invasion. But on February 25 of this year, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi, during a large press conference following the results of the forum “Ukraine. Year 2024” answered this question. According to him, “31 thousand Ukrainian soldiers died in this war”, not counting the fighters of volunteer battalions and the missing. But we see that this figure is significantly less than what the Russian Ministry of Defense states.

Russian propaganda has been promoting the narrative of Ukraine's war in the interests of the United States for long enough to neutralize the fact that Ukraine is defending its own territory, interests and cultural heritage. Claiming failures in the counteroffensive and dispelling the “myth” of the superiority of Western weapons does not reflect the full picture. Ukrainian forces carried out successful defensive actions, repelling attacks and inflicting significant losses on the enemy. For example, in the summer of 2022, an agreement was reached with Russia on a “safe corridor” in the Black Sea through the UN and Turkey. However, this agreement lasted only a year, after which Russia threatened to attack Ukrainian ports. Ukraine responded with naval drone and missile attacks on September 13, 2023, forcing Russia to reduce its ambitions in the Black Sea region.

Also, the “largest tank battle”, according to The New York Times, which the Ukrainian side won, took place on March 2, 2023 and proves the opposite of Shoihu’s claims. The Russian army launched powerful offensive operations after defeats in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions. Despite successful actions at Bakhmut and Soledar, they were defeated at Vuhledar due to the effective resistance of Ukrainian troops. Ukrainian Armed Forces fighters hit several tank columns heading towards Vuhledar and subsequently inflicted significant losses on Russian troops.

Shoihu’s statements regarding the counteroffensive and losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces look like an attempt to distort circumstances and convince the public of his superiority on the battlefield, despite such a powerful “enemy” as NATO.

Russian resources are disseminating information that allegedly in the village of Kozacha Lopan, Kharkiv region, officers of the 121st battalion of the 113th separate territorial defense brigade beat an elderly man. This allegedly happened because he refused to leave his house. As a result of the beating, the man's leg was allegedly broken.

In fact, this information is not true, writes the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council. This is another fake by the Russians, based on a photograph from the official Facebook page of the 113th separate territorial defense brigade. In fact, the military of the 121st separate battalion of the Troops Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine evacuated an elderly man from his house destroyed by the Russians.

By spreading disinformation of this kind, propagandists are trying to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine and sow distrust of them on the part of the people of Ukraine. In addition, in this way, propagandists also seek to incline to the idea that perhaps the elderly man did not want to leave because he was waiting for “liberation” by the Russians. Previously, we denied information that the Ukrainian military is planning to seize the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Russian propaganda uses Ukrainian stories about the training of border guards to spread disinformation in the Ukrainian information space about the preparation of offensive actions by the Ukrainian Defense Forces from the Sumy region to the Kursk region of Russia, which “will lead to increased military operations in the Sumy region”.

At the same time, the Russians are disseminating information about Russia’s alleged preparation of an offensive in the Sumy region. In fact, Russia does not have sufficient reserves for an offensive in the Sumy region. According to the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council, such rhetoric should force the Armed Forces of Ukraine to withdraw reserves from Kupiansk.

Also in this case, Russia is resorting to one of the Russian propaganda tactics, using fear, uncertainty and doubt to achieve its goals. That is, the target audience of such messages is also residents of the border regions of Ukraine. After all, another goal of propagandists is to force as many civilian Ukrainians as possible to leave the border regions of Ukraine. In addition, in this way, Russia is trying to justify its terrorist attacks on populated areas of the Sumy region.

Propagandists in the media and social networks began to spread manipulative information that a Russian missile allegedly destroyed 32 D-20 howitzers in the Sumy region of Ukraine. In such “news” they add a video that shows a missile strike on howitzers arranged in several rows. Some publications indicated the exact coordinates of the hit site. “Well, a very successful hit!”, users write.

After disseminating such information, StopFake decided to check whether Russia really managed to hit 32 howitzers of the Ukrainian army with one blow. They found out that this information is manipulative.

First, StopFake verified the authenticity of the distributed frames. Propagandists claimed that the video was from Okhtyrka, Sumy region. Some users even shared suitable coordinates. Fact-checkers found out that this was indeed the site of the “destruction” of howitzers. By comparing the satellite image on Google Maps and the propaganda video, one can see identical trees along the road, identical buildings and their location. A propaganda video circulated shows the howitzers strategically placed. This raises certain doubts, since the border with Russia that struck was only 40 kilometers along the shortest route. Keeping such a number of howitzer guns open in such close proximity to the enemy is, at first glance, at least illogical from a military point of view.

However, it turned out that there was a logical explanation for such placement of howitzers on the Ukrainian side. Having discovered the location of the impact on Google Maps, StopFake noticed that satellite images showed approximately the same number of guns with a similar arrangement. At first they assumed that this could be a recent image that accidentally captured the D-20 cluster. But with the help of archival photos of the same place, it was possible to establish that the “destroyed” howitzers had been standing there for more than one year. The Google Earth Pro program, which allows one to select the year the image was taken, recorded their placement starting in 2017. Since then, only a few howitzers have been removed.

Russia appears to have struck a storage site for faulty weapons that had been out in the open long before the full-scale invasion and is still there during active hostilities. Russian propaganda decided to hush up this fact, passing off the news as a successful strike on the “central weapons storage base and the destruction of 32 howitzers”. The fact that the howitzers were not used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces was also written by the user Tatarigami, who is engaged in OSINT analytics, on the social network X.com.

Propagandists spread such manipulations to create a belief among the local population that Ukrainian weapons are ineffective or are wasted.

Russian media, citing statements by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi, claim that he allegedly admitted the “pathetic state” of the Ukrainian army and its readiness to retreat from Kharkiv. Propagandists say that Syrskyi, along with Western allies, is losing confidence in Kyiv's successes and is increasingly worried about the possibility of a Russian attack not only on Kharkiv, but also on the Ukrainian capital. Such conclusions of the Russian media are based on an interview with Oleksandr Syrskyi for Ukrinform. However, this is manipulation.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that in fact, in this interview, Syrskyi never mentioned “critical problems” in the structure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and did not talk about the “strategic superiority” of the enemy. Discussing the state of affairs at the front, Syrskyi noted its complexity, but at the same time emphasized that war always requires great effort. He also noted that the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost fewer positions than they were able to regain. He noted that, despite Russia's advantage in the amount of ammunition and personnel, this did not give it strategic advantages, only minor territorial gains.

Syrskyi also noted Ukraine’s effectiveness in destroying enemy personnel and equipment, including the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and successfully using its advantage in the field of drones. He noted that Russian occupiers have serious problems with management and logistics.

According to Syrskyi, the main goal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is to prevent the loss of control over Ukrainian territory, to deplete the enemy as much as possible, inflict significant losses on him and prepare reserves for a counteroffensive. Pro-Kremlin media missed references to Russia's defeats, distorting these comments.

In the same interview with Ukrinform, Syrskyi did not make manipulative statements regarding Kharkiv, emphasizing that Ukraine takes information about possible offensive operations of the enemy seriously and is ready to properly respond to such threats. He noted that any attempt by Russia to attack Kharkiv again would lead to disastrous consequences for it, citing the successful experience of liberating the region in the past.

Propagandists spread such manipulations to discredit the Ukrainian armed forces and cause panic among the local population. Detector Media also refuted other manipulations aimed at discrediting the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russian propagandists are spreading the claim in the media that the new representative of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Ilia Yevlash, allegedly has Russian citizenship, and his father lives in Russia. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found out that on March 18, 2024, it became known that Illia Yevlash, originally from the city of Mena in the Chernihiv region, was appointed to the position of head of the public relations service of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to the Constitution of Ukraine, the country recognizes only one citizenship, which excludes the possibility of having dual citizenship, especially with an aggressor country.

Although Illia Yevlash did not publicly share information about his parents, he recalled visits to his parents in Mena after February 24, 2022, which indicates their residence in Ukraine.

Research on social networks revealed a user page under the name Oleh Yevlash, which propagandists called the page of Illia Yevlash’s father. The discovered common photographs confirm family ties. However, Oleh Yevlash’s residence is indicated as the city of Chernihiv, and not Russia. Entries on his page show that he did visit Russian cities before the full-scale invasion, but after February 24, 2022, there were no posts that could indicate his presence in Russia. He shared photos from Spain, France, Germany and Poland during the period 2022-2024.

Propagandists spread such fakes in order to arouse public distrust in new officials even before they begin full-time work in office.

In an interview for the Polish news channel Polsat News, former Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army Raimund Andrzejczak, according to propagandists, expressed the opinion that Ukraine’s losses should be estimated in millions, not hundreds of thousands. However, this information is manipulated.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found that in his speech Andrzejczak mentioned the losses associated with the large flow of refugees and limited resources for mobilization. He spoke of a certain threat, pointing to the shortage of people in Ukraine and the problem with mobilization capacity, claiming “10 million refugees”.

However, Andrzejczak's estimates of losses are not precise. According to the Mykhailo Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Research, more than 9 million Ukrainians are abroad, only some of them are refugees, and the others are labor migrants or those who left the country earlier. According to various estimates, the number of Ukrainian refugees ranges from 4.9 to 6.5 million.

The Center for Economic Strategy study also cites different figures, pointing to fewer Ukrainians abroad due to the war. Estimates of the actual losses of the Ukrainian military also vary, but do not reach millions. Approximate numbers of dead and prisoners are contained in the materials of the “Book of Memory of those who fell for Ukraine”, which has been keeping records of losses as a result of the war since 2014.

Propagandists often take phrases of famous politicians and military personnel out of context in order to dramatize the situation and cause despondency among Ukrainians.

This information is disseminated by Russian telegram channels. According to propagandists, this was done by a resident of Mala Rohan, Kharkiv region, because of his “love for Russia”.

In fact, the information about the poisoning of the military of the 113th separate territorial defense brigade does not correspond to reality. The Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council writes about this. The man, a resident of Balakliia, and not Mala Rohan, as Russian propagandists claim, was indeed detained, but not because of the poisoning of the military, but for his support of the Russians and calls for cooperation with them during the occupation of Balakliia. This was previously reported by the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office.

We urge you to trust only verified sources of information. Previously, Detector Media denied information that in the Kharkiv region, soldiers of the 125th separate territorial defense brigade allegedly shot two men.

Pro-Kremlin resources are spreading reports that dissatisfaction with the policies of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi is allegedly growing in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, so that the Ukrainian military “wants to seize the Verkhovna Rada by force”. In asserting this, Russian propaganda refers to supposedly closed chats of the Ukrainian Armed Forces military.

In fact, this information is not true, according to the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Russia has been promoting this narrative since the beginning of the full-scale invasion - on February 25, 2022, Putin called on the Ukrainian military to “take power into their own hands”. This narrative became more active during the period after the resignation of ex-head committee of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi. This is at least the second time that propagandists are using fake screenshots from “secret chats of the Ukrainian military”.

Thus, Russian propaganda “plays” with the moods and feelings of Ukrainians. This fake is aimed at exploding mutual trust in Ukrainian society: civilians towards the military, political leadership towards the military command, and the military, in fact, towards the authorities and command. Previously, we refuted the information that deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, allegedly under martial law, were required by law to resign.

Pro-Russian resources are distributing an image with the logo of the Ukrainian online publication UNIAN, which contains a photograph of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Anatolii Barhylevych and a quote allegedly belonging to him: “With what disability group can you serve in the army? With anyone. If a person can tie a grenade to themselves and jump into the dugout, then they are fit”.

The Center for Countering Disinformation analyzed this “news”. Specialists from the Center verified the information in UNIAN and reported that there were no materials with similar content on the official pages of the news agency. And the quote itself, allegedly from the Chief of the General Staff, is made up, since Barhylevych did not say anything similar about people with disabilities. In addition, the creators of the fake also made a mistake in the quote. The word “man” is feminine, but at the end of the quote the Russians used the pronoun “he”, which corresponds to a word that is not feminine, but masculine.

The purpose of such fakes is to discredit the top military leadership of the Ukrainian state. Also, by spreading disinformation on behalf of Ukrainian online publications, the Russians are trying to give it more truthfulness. Previously, we have already recorded cases when propagandists spread fake news on behalf of the UNIAN news agency.

Propaganda resources are disseminating information that the Ukrainian Armed Forces, allegedly with the support of up to 300 “foreign mercenaries”, tried to invade the Belgorod region of Russia from the area of Odnorobivka, Nekhoteievka and Sidoroshyno. In asserting this, propagandists refer to the Russian Ministry of Defense, as well as to the corresponding statement by Putin.

In fact, this information is not true. They write about this in the Center for Strategic Communications under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Units of the Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVK) and the Siberia Battalion entered Russian territory in the Hraivoronskyi district of the Belgorod region and Tiotkino in the Kursk region on the morning of March 12. They consist of ethnic Russian emigrants, prisoners and former Russian military personnel who voluntarily stood up to defend Ukraine.

GUR representative Andrii Yusov in a comment to the Suspilne (Public) stated that on the territory of Russia these units operate as “independent structures and organizations”. They consist of Russian citizens and therefore, accordingly, “are at home”.

Anonymous telegram channels write that the Armed Forces of Ukraine seem to be engaged in “sexual exploitation” of women. They say the command of the 44th separate mechanized brigade forces women to collect donations for the brigade with candid photos. As proof, the authors of the fake add screenshots from Facebook: one of the photos shows the Facebook account of a girl who seems to be calling for donations to the 44th Brigade for FPV drones. The account itself, as shown in the screenshot, contains explicit photos with elements of pornography. It is not true.

The case was analyzed by StopFake fact-checkers, who examined the Facebook account of a user under the nickname “Sveta Andriuk”. Using a reverse search on Google, it was possible to establish that the photos from the account belong to a model of the social network with intimate content Onlyfans. And on the page of the probable user they actually publish various meetings at the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but not only for the needs of the 44th Brigade.

That is, this cannot confirm the thesis about the “sexual exploitation” of women in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Firstly, the Facebook account does not indicate any information about the service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine regarding the probable user. Secondly, it is unknown who runs this Facebook page and for what purpose. The fact-checkers have not determined whether this account is run by a real person. For example, the activity of the Facebook page itself is quite small.

A video is being circulated on social networks in the Russian segment in which a so-called Ukrainian volunteer allegedly received gratitude from the Ministry of Defense for his “active civic position and assistance to the army” - and in addition, he was “handed” a draft notice to the nearest Territorial center of recruitment and social support. In the messages, the authors of the fake conclude that in Ukraine you “shouldn’t” trust anyone, because they still want to mobilize a volunteer who decided to help of his own free will. However, just like the gratitude from the Ministry of Defense, the draft notice is fake.

The case was analyzed by VoxCheck specialists, who explained that the gratitude and the agenda do not comply with state design standards and contain various errors. For example, with regard to gratitude from the Ministry of Defense, in the special order “On departmental incentive awards” they give an example of a sketch of a “certificate”. It is different from the one in the fake video.

Moreover, in the text of gratitude itself there are many errors: in words “Vasylenko”, “heating means”, etc.

The situation with the draft notice is the same: instead of the current name of Kropyvnytskyi, the fake document used the old one - Kirovohrad. They also wrote a military commissariat, although there should be a territorial center for recruitment and social support.

That is, Russian propagandists wanted to show that in Ukraine they “use” people for their own purposes, for example, for widespread mobilization. In the message, the Kremlin’s minions convinced that the volunteer was doing something useful, helping the army, but the “evil Ukrainian authorities” decided to mobilize him anyway.

However, according to the law “On mobilization preparation and mobilization” and Article 23 of the legislative initiative, the status of a volunteer does not fall under the category of persons who may be exempt from mobilization. First of all, volunteer activity is a voluntary, socially oriented, non-profit activity that is performed by volunteers by providing volunteer assistance. In theory, a Ukrainian volunteer can be mobilized or served with a draft notice if there are specific grounds for this.

Propagandists claim that such flashlights have already appeared in temporarily occupied Horlivka and may appear in other front-line cities.

The Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council denied this information. In fact, such “flashlights” began to be scattered by the pro-Russian population of the Kharkiv region, as reported by the mayor of Pervomaisk Mykola Baksheiev. According to the mayor, instead of batteries, inside the device there are explosives that detonate when turned on. Although the charge is small, damage to the limbs is guaranteed.

Under no circumstances should you pick up such “flashlights”, call the police immediately if you come across one. We urge you to be vigilant and take care of yourself. Previously, we refuted information that in the Kharkiv region, fighters of a 125th  separate territorial defense brigade allegedly shot two men.

Russian resources are disseminating information that allegedly during his last visit to Russia, the current commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi, “confessed to his mother, that he is with the Ukrainians in the same headquarters and cannot stand them, because they are cunning and unpleasant”. As proof, Russian propaganda is distributing a video in which a neighbor of Syrskyi’s parents allegedly recalls how the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine told his relatives about hatred of Ukrainians.

This information is fake, and the video is staged. This is reported by VoxCheck. Statements from Russian media contradict each other. Syrskyi said that he hated Ukrainians during his last visit to his relatives, but now he continues to communicate with them. At the same time, the “neighbor” in the video does not remember when the new commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that he hates Ukrainians and, accordingly, it was the last time he visited his relatives. One Russian resource reports that this happened between 2008 and 2010. Another propaganda resource, citing the words of his brother, the head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, claims that Syrskyi does not keep in touch with his relatives. Independent media do not indicate when the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces last saw or communicated with relatives. This information cannot be verified on the basis of open data, so the allegations about Syrskyi’s “Ukrainophobia” are unfounded.

A significant part of his life and military career is connected with Ukraine and the confrontation with Russia. After the start of a full-scale invasion, the current commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine became one of the key persons in the country's defense. In addition, he considers Kharkiv to be his hometown, where he graduated from school.

This fake appeared as part of a large-scale campaign aimed at discrediting the new commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition, the purpose of such lies is to sow discord among Ukrainians, undermine confidence in the country’s top leadership and make them despair of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Previously, in the Newspeak section, we wrote about how and why the word “virus” was again remembered in Russia after the appointment of Oleksandr Syrskyi to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russian telegram channels are distributing a video in which allegedly soldiers of the Third Separate Assault Brigade (3rd Separate Assault Brigade) shot Russians in a trench who were trying to surrender.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine stated that this video recording was obviously staged. Firstly, in the video one can trace the artificial Ukrainian actors - “fighters”. Secondly, the “killed man” suddenly began to move. In fact, Ukraine adheres to the Geneva Conventions and treats prisoners humanely. The Russian army has repeatedly shot Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered.

Thus, propagandists encourage the Russian military to kill every Ukrainian, even unarmed ones, without hesitation, they say, “look, they do this!” In addition, in this case, Russian propaganda uses tactics of reflection, that is, they bring forward the same accusations against Ukraine as it does against Russia. Only the Ukrainian side has real grounds for this, unlike Russia, because, for example, only on February 18-20, 2024, cases of executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian occupiers near Avdiivka, Vesele and Robotyne were recorded.

Read also: While studying in Germany, Ukrainian soldiers allegedly boast about the atrocities they commit against Russians

Russian media are disseminating information that soldiers of the 73rd Naval Special Operations Center allegedly died while trying to gain a foothold on the Tendra Spit in the northern part of the Black Sea, off the coast of the Kherson region.

This information is not true. The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine reports that in fact, the military of the 73rd Special Operations Center took their last battle after successfully completing a special mission, when they ensured the withdrawal of the main forces of the group.

“The heroic and extremely complex combat work of the Special Operations Forces units on land, at sea and deep behind enemy lines is the daily contribution of the Special Operations Forces soldiers to victory over the enemy. Always remember at what cost our freedom is fought”, the Special Operations Forces command notes.

This information is disseminated by pro-Kremlin resources. According to propagandists, the incident occurred near the border village of Slatyne.

The Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council says that this is another fake by Russian propagandists. In fact, the victims were blown up by an explosive device installed by the Russians in the forest belt between Velyki Prohody and Slatyne (Kharkiv region). This was reported by the Kharkiv regional prosecutor's office. The men were aged 32 and 19 years old, both residents of the village of Slatyne. The prosecutor's office established that they went to the forest to cut firewood for household needs.

Russian propagandists spread such fake news in order to demonize the Ukrainian military. However, it is the Russian army that is to blame for the death of these men, because Slatyne is an occupied territory. In all likelihood, during the flight from the Kharkiv region, the Russians left traps, in particular in the form of anti-personnel mines.

Read also: As a result of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ shelling of a “bakery” in Lysychansk, 28 “civilians” were allegedly killed

Russian propagandists began a disinformation campaign claiming losses of the Ukrainian Defense Forces near Selydove in the Donetsk region. This is a clear example of Russian disinformation.

This was reported by the United Press Center of the Taurian Defense Forces. He noted that on February 13, 2024, Russian troops used the Uragan MLRS to strike the town of Tsukuryne, Pokrovskyi district. Rescuers from the State Emergency Service inspected the area and determined that as a result of the shelling, 2 multi-apartment two-story residential buildings on Svitla street and a car were damaged. There are no casualties or wounded.

Thus, the enemy is trying to divert attention from his significant losses in the Taurian direction. In just one day on February 12, they suffered 645 losses, and in the previous week (from February 5 to February 11) - 2,947 people.

Propagandists are distributing a video on social networks that they are trying to present as a mocking video on behalf of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It depicts Ukrainian soldiers allegedly laughing at the counteroffensive, repeating the phrase “we carried out a successful counteroffensive in our pants”. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found out that this video is not on the official pages of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the General Staff on social networks, nor on their official websites. In addition, during editing, the propagandists made a mistake with the symbolism, using the cross of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine instead of the emblem of the Armed Forces. All ten frames from which the video is compiled are taken from open sources. For example, one fragment is taken from a video published on the Insider UA telegram channel, where fighters ask for financial support for the Kraken unit. Another excerpt was found in a video filmed on the day of the liberation of Kherson by the Defense Forces in November 2022.

This is not the first time Russian propaganda has used the phrase “successful counteroffensive in your pants” to discredit Ukraine. President Zelenskyi acknowledged that the Defense Forces' summer counteroffensive did not produce the expected results, mainly due to insufficient allied support and the lack of necessary weapons, but he did not call it a failure. Propagandists manipulate this. Detector Media also wrote about other Russian fakes regarding the counteroffensive.

Pro-Russian resources disseminated information that on February 3, 2024, the Ukrainian Armed Forces dealt a “cruel blow” to Lysychansk, Luhansk region, as a result of which a two-story “bakery” building collapsed and allegedly injured “civilians”. In particular, gauleiter of the occupied Luhansk region Leonid Pasichnyk wrote about this on his telegram channel. The next day, February 4, after clearing the rubble, the Russians announced 28 dead “civilians” and blamed the Ukrainian Armed Forces for this.

However, already on February 5, Pasichnyk himself admitted on his telegram channel that the Minister of Emergency Situations of the LPR, Colonel Oleksii Poteleshchenko, was killed during the shelling. He received Russian citizenship in 2019, worked in the ranks of the so-called “LPR People’s Militia”, and in 2023 headed the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the self-proclaimed LPR.

According to the British media Reuters, based on the design and color of the shelled building, as well as the location matching the file images, an acquaintance was able to confirm the location of the video shared by the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations. On Google maps it coincides with the location of the Adriatica restaurant on Moskovska Street in Lysychansk. That is, the blow was struck not at the bakery, which is located next to the restaurant, but precisely at the Adriatica. Ukrainian blogger and journalist Denys Kazanskyi also writes about this, citing propagandist Anastasiia Kashevarova, who also claims that there were many security officials in the restaurant with the Minister of Emergency Situations of the LPR. According to her, they were celebrating the birthday of a “high-ranking man”. However, they were allegedly surrendered by local residents who did not support the activities of the occupation authorities.

By spreading disinformation about the shelling of a “bakery” and the death of 28 “civilians”, the Russians seek to demonize the Ukrainian army and nourish their narrative of “atrocities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces” against civilians on the temporary occupied territories. Earlier, Detector Media denied information that the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly fired at the market in Donetsk.

Pro-Kremlin media write that there will soon be a breakthrough by Russian troops on the contact line, as the number of Ukrainian defenders is getting smaller. Russian troops are allegedly successfully moving forward along the entire front line. In asserting this, propagandists refer to former intelligence officer of the US Armed Forces Scott Ritter, who made a corresponding statement.

This information is fake, as reported by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. Ritter's statements duplicate Russian narratives. He has more than once predicted the “imminent collapse of Ukraine” and the “victory of Russia”, and frightened the Ukrainians with a “large-scale offensive by the Russians”. In November 2023, Ritter also said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would soon be destroyed, but Ukrainian soldiers continued to hold the line. As for the supposedly successful advance of the Russians, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, said that the offensive operation of the Russian troops has been going on for two and a half months: “They have a certain advance in the fields, what happened near Avdiivka. But this is not what they expected. The occupiers wanted to reach the barrier line along the Black Stallion River in the Kharkiv region and the administrative border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as quickly as possible. There’s nothing even close to that”.

Russians fill the information space with news demotivated by the Ukrainian people. This is all happening against the backdrop of the fact that the United States and the EU have been unable to unblock financial assistance to Ukraine in the amount of $61.4 billion and €50 billion, respectively. Therefore, the Ukrainian army suffers, which may not receive enough weapons and equipment necessary for waging war. Previously, we refuted Ritter’s assertion that “Ukrainian aviation has been completely destroyed”.

Propagandists claim that the war in Ukraine will supposedly end on the terms determined by Russia after the complete collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Like, the USA announced this. However, this is manipulation.

Specialists from the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security drew attention to it. They found out that this information was being disseminated by Russian media with reference to a military expert, former US Marine Brian Berletik. Berletik is, in fact, a pseudo-expert spreading Russian propaganda. He gives examples of how the Ukrainian military allegedly “kills its own population in order to frame Russia”.  Previously, he also argued that Ukraine will continue to lose its regions. It is simply pointless to trust the “forecasts” of such a person, since he only expresses theses that are beneficial for Russia. This is his personal opinion, and not the position of the entire United States.

At the moment, according to the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, there is no reason to believe that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will face a “complete collapse”, since the Ukrainian army successfully holds the defense and inflicts significant losses on the occupiers. That is why propagandists spread such manipulations - to create a false impression of Russia’s victory on the battlefield, which supposedly even is recognized by Ukraine’s allies. Detector Media has repeatedly denied other Russian manipulations related to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russian propagandists, citing statements by journalist Christoph Wanner, are spreading information in the media that the defenders of Ukraine have to give up positions from small sections of the front due to a lack of people. However, this is manipulation.

Specialists from the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security drew attention to it. Probably, the propaganda had in mind the retreat of the defenders of Ukraine from Krokhmalne in the Kharkiv region and the capture of this village by Russian occupiers. The representative of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, Fitio, clarified during the telethon that the defense forces retreated to reserve positions due to the fact that the village was completely destroyed by the occupiers, and it was no longer possible to remain there, since this endangered the lives of the Ukrainian military. In addition, they found that Wanner's journalistic work was characterized by one-sidedness, violations of journalistic standards and an open pro-Russian position.

Propagandists spread such manipulations to give a false impression of victories at the front. Detector Media has repeatedly denied other Russian manipulations related to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russian propagandists and politicians write that on the morning of January 21, 2024, the Donetsk Mercury market came under fire from the Ukrainian army. Like, it’s customary in the Ukrainian Armed Forces to shoot at the market, even on a day off.

In fact, the Ukrainian military is not involved in these attacks, as reported by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. The forces that are subordinate to the Tavria Operational-strategic troop grouping and sometimes destroying Russians in the Donetsk region, in this case did not carry out combat work with means of destruction. This was noted in the joint press center of the Taurian Defense Forces and added: “Donetsk is Ukraine! Russia will have to answer for the taken lives of Ukrainians”.

With this fake, Russian propaganda seeks to nourish the narrative that “the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been bombing Donbas since 2014” and allegedly continue to do so. That is, in this case, propagandists resort to reflexive tactics, trying to justify the atrocities of the Russian army. Previously, we refuted information that the Ukrainian authorities allegedly admitted that they would have to give up the occupied territories to the Russians.

In its report for January 13, 2024, ISW reported that Russia could form an assault force for landing in the rear of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Hostomel is mentioned as an example at the beginning of a full-scale invasion. Russian and even Ukrainian resources picked up the news and began to disseminate information about possible similar operations, in particular near Kharkiv.

In fact, this information is not true. This was reported by the Center for Countering Disinformation of the National Security and Defense Council. In the ISW report, it referred to one Russian source, which may already indicate the falsity of what was stated. In addition, it states that Russian paratroopers do not even seem to need parachutes. Everything had to happen by landing helicopters in the near rear for the rapid deployment of personnel. However, since the beginning of the war, Ukraine has significantly strengthened its air defense, and the landing in Hostomel in February 2022 was not successful. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have weapons that are capable of quickly destroying any helicopters and aircraft. For example, the operation to destroy the A-50 aircraft over the Sea of Azov is a clear confirmation. Before this, there were other downings of Russian planes and helicopters.

Such rhetoric is intended to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt among the Ukrainian people. This is one of the propaganda tactics. There will probably be more information leaks on this topic, so trust verified resources. Earlier,  Detector Media analyzed the message of Russian propaganda saying that Ukrainian air defense is about to end.

Pro-Russian resources are disseminating information that the head of the Chernihiv state military administration, Viacheslav Chaus, at a press conference following the results of 2023, said that more than 50 thousand mobilized from the Chernihiv region have already died in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In fact, this information is not true, reports the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. At the press conference, Chaus reported on the demographic situation in the region and noted that the decrease in indicators by 50 thousand residents is due to displaced persons since the beginning of active hostilities in other regions of Ukraine or abroad. That is, the information about the alleged disclosure by the head of the Chernihiv state military administration of the number of people mobilized in the region is a fiction of Russian propaganda, since Chaus did not make any statements on this topic.

In addition, exact data on the distribution of those mobilized by region is not published in open sources, as well as information on the number of killed and wounded defenders of Ukraine. The last is a state secret that will be disclosed only after the end of the great war.

Russian propaganda continues to speculate on the topic of mobilization in Ukraine, which has become sensitive for Ukrainians, since this topic concerns almost every family. The purpose of spreading this disinformation is to intimidate the Ukrainian people, saying that compared to the Chernivtsi region, the numbers throughout Ukraine should be tens of times higher. More exposures of fakes and manipulations by Russians on the topic of mobilization in Ukraine can be found here.

Pro-Russian media disseminated manipulative messages that the Ukrainian military-political leadership allegedly does not have a backup plan in case of the end of aid from the allies. In asserting this, Russian propaganda refers to a statement by the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, in which he allegedly “recognized the absence of a plan B” in Ukraine in case the “military support for Ukraine from the countries of the collective West is completely stopped or reduced so the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be forced to stop fighting”.

This information is not true. Answering a question from a CNN journalist about how Ukraine will resist Russian aggression if financial and military assistance from allied countries is delayed, Kuleba noted that the Armed Forces of Ukraine will, in any case, continue to repel the Russian occupiers. Fact-checkers from the StopFake project write about this.

“We don’t have a plan B, we are confident in plan A - Ukraine will always fight with the resources it has”, Kuleba said in an interview with CNN. The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry also added that any officials who think that Putin will never dare to attack a NATO country if the Kremlin “sees the possibility of victory” in Ukraine are deeply mistaken. If Russian aggression expands beyond Ukraine, democratic countries will pay much more than the Russian-Ukrainian war, so Ukraine is confident in the support of its allied countries, Kuleba concluded.

Disinformation is spread by Russian propaganda as part of promoting the narrative about the “West prolonging” the war in Ukraine. They say that Western countries benefit from this war, since it exhausts Russia, which continues to pursue its imperialist dreams. In addition, the West supposedly has the opportunity to test existing weapons at a “testing ground in Ukraine”, and also, if necessary, modernize them and replenish stocks with new weapons and military equipment. In fact, it was Russia that started the bloody war in Ukraine and it is it who continues it, and not the collective West, because it sees a certain benefit in it for itself.

After each massive shelling of Ukraine, Russian propagandists claim that Ukrainian air defense is almost running out. They say this is due to the destruction of Western air defense systems by Russian “kinzhals” and the shortage of ammunition for them.

The Center for Strategic Communications at the National Security and Defense Council writes that in fact, air defense systems in Ukraine successfully destroy the majority of Russian missiles and UAVs, including hypersonic “daggers”. This is confirmed by the fact that ten out of ten “daggers” launched into Kyiv on the morning of January 2 were shot down. Ukrainian air defense is capable of repelling massive attacks using various types of weapons (ballistic and cruise missiles, kamikaze drones, etc.). Moreover, the protection of Ukrainian skies is constantly strengthened through cooperation with Ukraine’s international partners. In this regard, Russia is nervous and is trying to pass off wishful thinking.

The purpose of promoting such a message is to sow panic among the population of Ukraine in the face of new Russian shelling and despondency among Ukrainian defenders. Previously, we analyzed the message of Russian propaganda that all air defense systems seemed to be installed in Kyiv, so other cities of Ukraine are not protected.

Pro-Kremlin telegram channels disseminate information that NATO member countries, including the United States, are not against the Armed Forces of Ukraine “hitting”  Russia with all available weapons, that is, foreign ones, and not just Ukrainian ones. Based on the results of an emergency telephone conversation between representatives of the United States, NATO, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, which followed another massive Russian shelling of Ukrainian cities on January 2, 2024, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin allegedly promised to satisfactorily respond to Ukraine’s requests regarding medium- and long-range missiles. In arguing this, propagandists cite an article by The New York Times. However, this is a fake.

The truth is that The New York Times never published such a story, and their reporter at the Paris bureau of Constant Méheut, the supposed author of the fictitious article, did not actually write the story. This was reported by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. The Western countries arming Kyiv demanded that Ukraine use only its own weapons to attack Russian territory. In addition, neither on the NATO website nor on the official Pentagon channels there is any mention of the supply of missiles to Ukraine without range restrictions. This information is also not available on the website and communication channels of the US Embassy in Ukraine.

By spreading this disinformation, Russian propaganda seeks to demonize NATO, including the United States, saying that they are starting to openly fight against Russia and are even ready to destroy the civilian population of Russia. Thus, the propagandists also want to justify the bloody war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine and, according to them, against the entire West and NATO, which allegedly want to destroy Russia. Previously, Detector Media analyzed the Russian manipulation that NATO would allegedly invade Russia “after the war in Ukraine”.

This thesis was spread on social networks, in particular on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are creating an advertising campaign to “promote” women into the army. And they explain this initiative by saying that women should “encourage” men and get to know them. “Do you want a “real man”: strong, courageous, responsible? You know the answer. All the “real men” are here now - join the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, the video says.

The VoxCheck analysts investigated the case and found that such a video does not belong to the official campaigns of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. For example, this video is not on the official website or on the social media pages of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Moreover, using a reverse search on Google, it was possible to find out that the video was compiled using frames from stock videos. In addition, the video was distributed exclusively in the Russian segment of social networks.

Russian propaganda is once again speculating on the topic of “mobilization of women”. But only doctors and pharmacists must register with the military from October 1, 2023; however, military registration does not mean mobilization or the establishment of restrictions on travel abroad. The Ministry of Health notes: registration is necessary only to summarize data on the existing reserve of doctors in the country. The travel of this category of women is unlimited. To register for military service, this category of women will have three years - until December 31, 2026.

Propagandists also repeatedly appealed to the provisions of the bill, previously promulgated by People’s Deputy Marianna Bezuhla. Possible legislative norms published state that women who are fit for military service will be registered as liable for military service. At the same time, during martial law, women are recruited to combat positions only voluntarily. But during a big press conference that Volodymyr Zelenskyi held on December 19, 2023, he said that he would not sign a bill with clauses on the mobilization of women.

Among other things, we recommend reading another of our documented cases, in which propagandists claimed that Ukrainian doctors and pharmacists were supposedly “escaping” from Ukraine en masse through the so-called mobilization.

Russian propagandists are distributing a photo of an advertising billboard showing a military man and woman in uniform, presumably in a combat zone. The billboard also features two slogans in the foreground: “together at home, together at the front” and “a military family is a special family”. That is, a man and a woman are allegedly calling on Ukrainians to mobilize into the army as families, and not alone. Russians claim that similar advertising appeared in Sumy. However, this is another fake.

The Center for Countering Information decided to contact the Sumy city military administration to confirm or deny this information. As it turned out, billboards with such content do not exist in the city or even its region - this is an invention of Russian propaganda. In addition, the photo taken by the Russians to spread this fake was taken back in 2021. It depicts married couples who began defending Ukraine back in 2016 as part of the 16th separate motorized infantry battalion.

The purpose of spreading disinformation of this type is to discredit the mobilization process in Ukraine. Moreover, these lies nourish the propaganda narrative that “the war will continue until the last Ukrainian”. Under the #mobilization tag, read more materials on this topic from Detector Media.

Pro-Russian telegram channels write that in the near future Ukrainian troops will supposedly begin to retreat from the left bank of the Kherson region, from the village of Krynky, since the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces there can be calculated in the dozens. They say that since the end of autumn 2023, the Ukrainian military has been “pushed” there not to expand the bridgehead, but to inevitable death. In the Russian army, supposedly in Krynky there are only a few wounded. In asserting this, propagandists refer to Putin’s statement made during the “direct line” on December 14, 2023. However, this is not true.

The experts from the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security analyzed this case. They found out that in fact the situation in the village of Krynky, which is described in propaganda publications, referring to Putin, is significantly exaggerated, as are the “tactical successes” of the Russian occupiers in this direction. In addition, a cemetery of broken Russian equipment has already accumulated near Krynky, which is confirmed by video recordings of precise strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the occupiers. By the way, presumably, in the area of the village of Krynky in the fall of 2023, the deputy of the 14th Army Corps of the Russian Armed Forces, Major General Zavadskyi, died.

It should be noted that on December 14, 2023, the day of Putin’s “direct line”, the British Ministry of Defense reports specifically on the problems of the Russian military on the left bank of Kherson, and not the Ukrainian army. They write there that the newly formed 104th Guards Airborne Division of Russia with a high probability suffered extremely heavy losses when trying to dislodge Ukrainian forces from Krynky.

Speaking about the successes of Russians on the left bank of the Kherson region, Russian propaganda is trying to create the idea that the Russian army has a great advantage there. In addition, in this way, propagandists once again exceed the achievements of the Russian military in the war in Ukraine. Previously, we analyzed the propaganda message that Ukraine is allegedly preparing for the surrender of Kherson.

The Russians are promoting a message about the alleged appearance of “two armies” in Ukraine: one under the command of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the other under the Commander of the Ground Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi. Arguments allegedly confirming this thesis boil down to the fact that President Volodymyr Zelenskyi had personal communication with Syrskyi.

The Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council explains that the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief is working, so personal meetings between Zelenskyi and Zaluzhnyi, and Zaluzhnyi himself with Syrskyi are regular. In Ukraine there is a clear vertical: Supreme Commander-in-Chief (President) - Ministry of Defense - Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The message itself about “two Ukrainian armies” is beneficial primarily to Russia. In this way, Russian propaganda is trying to sow discord among the military-political leadership of Ukraine, Ukrainians and weaken us. Previously, Detector Media denied information that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was allegedly calling for a military coup.

Pro-Russian resources accuse the Armed Forces of Ukraine of preparing an alleged anti-Russian provocation using toxic military substances. At the same time, world structures will allegedly blame Russia for this - following the example of “false accusations of Russia in chemical attacks in Syria”. It's fake.

Specialists from the StopFake project investigated this case. In fact, Ukraine is a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty that entered into force in the country in 1998. Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has been closely monitoring the state of Ukrainian chemical industries and any threats to use toxic chemicals as weapons in the country. Ukraine adheres to its international obligations on the non-use and non-proliferation of chemical weapons; this fact has been repeatedly confirmed by the OPCW, which operates under the auspices of the UN. All Russian accusations that Ukraine is preparing so-called “provocations” are cynical, and the narratives have no factual or evidentiary basis.

The statement about “falsely accusing Russia” of carrying out chemical attacks in Syria is also disinformation. Russian fakes on this topic have been repeatedly refuted by the world's leading experts on toxic chemicals, including the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Propagandists are once again trying to present Ukraine, which is defending itself from Russia, as an aggressor. Thus, they also want to justify the crimes of their own army in Ukraine, saying that Russia is resisting evil and has come to the neighboring country to “restore order”.

• Read also: The Ukrainian army allegedly used chemical weapons.

Users of social networks spreading pro-Russian rhetoric are disseminating information allegedly from servicemen of two separate mechanized brigades in eastern Ukraine, namely the 54th Separate Mechanized Brigade named after. Hetman Ivan Mazepa and the 14th OMBR named after Prince Roman the Great were infected with rabies. It is noted that they were hospitalized due to consumption of meat from infected animals. However, such statements are false.

Analysts from the VoxCheck project investigated the case. They claim that the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and local media have not recorded any cases of rabies among the military men mentioned in the post or any other military brigades. As of December 2023, there were no cases of rabies infection in humans in the Kharkov region. At the time of writing, only one case of rabies was confirmed in Ukraine in a resident of the Vinnytsia region. Despite the fact that the mentioned brigades do participate in the defense in the Kharkiv region, there is no evidence of rabies infection among their military personnel.

It is noted that in Ukraine there has been an increase in cases of rabies among animals, especially in September-October. However, infection due to consumption of meat from infected animals is unlikely because the virus does not persist in meat for long periods of time outside the body.

Propagandists spread such fake news in order to desecrate the image of the Ukrainian military and cause distrust of them among the Ukrainian population. Detector Media has repeatedly written about other inventions of Russians aimed at discrediting the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Pro-Russian resources are disseminating information that Volodymyr Zelenskyi is allegedly silent about the “colossal losses” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Propaganda media write about this with reference to a video from the YouTube channel of Oleh Soskin, a former adviser to the ex-president of Ukraine Kuchma. However, this is a fake.

Specialists from the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security undertook to analyze this case. The fact is that information about the number of killed and wounded Ukrainian military personnel during martial law constitutes a state secret. This is at least due to the fact that Russia can use this data to calculate possible further actions of the Defense Forces. That is, we are talking about the military’s demand, and not about Zelenskyi’s personal desire to hide important information from society.

By spreading disinformation on a sensitive topic for Ukrainians, Russian propaganda is trying to once again discredit the current President of Ukraine and undermine the trust of Ukrainian society in him. After all, the approximate number of Ukrainian military deaths in the war against Russia will only be known after its end. Previously, we analyzed the propaganda message that the Ukrainian authorities are allegedly lying to the Ukrainians, that there are no losses in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Propagandists spreading pro-Russian rhetoric on social networks are publishing an article by the author of the British publication The Telegraph, Lewis Page, claiming that he allegedly writes about the misuse of Western equipment by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) during the counteroffensive. However, this is manipulation.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that such an article by The Telegraph really exists, and its author actually writes about the difficulties of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, but does not claim that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are using Western equipment incorrectly. The article notes that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is a difficult task. The author rather criticizes Western experts who say that “properly used” Western tanks will help quickly end the war.

The article also reveals some facts about the supply of tanks to Ukraine, noting that as of August 2023, only a limited number of tanks had been transferred. The journalist adds that criticism of the use of Western equipment by the Armed Forces of Ukraine is unfair, since the West has limited the use of equipment for attacks on Russian territory and delayed the supply of tanks to Ukraine. The article notes the success of the Ukrainian army in conditions of limited access to Western equipment and reveals the essence of the circumstances that determined the development of the situation at the front.

By spreading such manipulations, propagandists want to create a myth that Western media consider the Armed Forces of Ukraine to be insufficiently competent compared to the Russian army. They say that this is why the peoples of Western countries must resist military aid for Ukraine. Detector Media has repeatedly refuted fakes and manipulations of Russian propaganda directed against the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Such information was disseminated on social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is in fact “staged”. The authors of the fake message convince readers that there is no action on the part of the Ukrainian army, and they have been “defeated”  for a long time. As evidence, they allegedly refer to a news story filmed by Ukrainian media professionals. It explains that “war occurs in our minds”. It's a lie.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security explains that the story is compiled: it was assembled from different pieces of video, and not a single Ukrainian media outlet has produced such a video. Moreover, it is distributed only in the Russian segment of social networks.

Thus, the authors resort to typical conspiracy theories and seek to deny everything that is happening around them. Russian propaganda operates on this principle, for example, when it says that Ukraine supposedly does not exist, which means there are no wars, they are all theatrical. After all, the Kremlin's minions are trying to obscure reality.

By the way, in our Newspeak section we also analyzed how Russia seeks to deny the existence of Ukraine and blind the eyes of Russians and other peoples who do not perceive the Ukrainian state as an independent, sovereign state. Propagandists do this using the term “country 404”.

In the Russian segment of the social network X (formerly Twitter), information is being spread that the speaker of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, allegedly received a positive test for HIV. Users of the social network allegedly refer to an article by Breitbart News, where they note that Sarah Ashton-Cirillo was previously under investigation due to accusations of pedophilia and rape of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It's fake.

The case was investigated by the fact-checker of the VoxCheck project. They found out that the article about HIV that Russian propaganda refers to is not on the website, social networks or web archive of Breitbart News. Moreover, the primary source of this publication is the Russian telegram channel. Breitbart News wrote an article that the speaker was suspended pending an investigation into her statements about Russian propagandists. So Russian propaganda created a fake photo based on this publication.

Moreover, the fact-checkers did not find information about the official being accused of pedophilia and rape. And HIV testing results are confidential, so if Sarah Ashton-Cirillo actually tested positive, the results would not be disclosed.

Thus, Russian propaganda is trying to discredit the speaker of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Troops Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, who belongs to the LGBTQ+ community. Russian propagandists nourish false information that LGBTQ+ people are the main carriers of HIV and AIDS, pedophiles and rapists. This is all part of a Russian campaign to discredit the LGBTQ+ community and Ukraine, which has allegedly moved away from traditional values. Previously, Detector Media published research on Russian LGBT disinformation on social networks and explained how Russian propaganda is trying to use LGBTQIA issues in the context of the war against Ukraine.

Anonymous telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric disseminate information that the Ukrainian military is allegedly fighting under the influence of “combat chemicals” obtained in the form of chocolates and injections. Russian military officers report that it is psychotropic drugs that are behind the courage of the Ukrainian military and therefore they are not afraid of death. It is not true.

The case was investigated by the fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project. Russian propaganda has been systematically spreading fake news about drug addiction among Ukrainians since 2014. Russian propagandists have repeatedly stated that psychotropic substances were added to the food of Euromaidan participants and that they were used by ATO participants. Russian propaganda also accused the Ukrainian military of using drugs at the end of March 2022, when the Russians, under pressure from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, left the north of Ukraine. After the start of the counteroffensive, these topics re-emerged in the Russian information space.

Thus, Russian propaganda is trying to demonize the Ukrainian military and sow fear among Ukrainians about them. Also, Russian propagandists seek to justify Russian aggression - they say, Ukrainians need to be saved from aggressive Ukrainian fighters and the failures of the Russian military on the battlefield. Previously, we refuted the fake that the United States supplies drugs to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Such information was disseminated in social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. The reports say that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are calling for the destruction of all people in the de-occupied territories, since anyone can turn out to be a traitor. The authors of the messages refer to the telegram channel allegedly of the 35th Ukrainian brigade. It is not true.

The fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project drew attention to the case, and they found out that the 35th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine does not have an official page on  Telegram. Therefore, the channel itself, from where the information was disseminated, is fake. The military unit confirmed that the information page of their brigade was not on  Telegram. And all the messages spread on their behalf are fake. Fact-checkers checked the fake Telegram channel itself and found that the authors often spread panic: they talk about the huge losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the impossibility of victory, ineffective actions of the command, etc. They also discredit Ukrainian officials. In addition, a recent fake about the death of Kyryl Budanov was circulated.

We recall that earlier we explained how and why Russian propagandists create clone pages of the Ukrainian military or even an entire brigade. Thus, they want to win the loyalty of the Ukrainians who can believe in the authenticity of the messages.

The Kremlin propaganda media and anonymous telegram channels spread information that in Ukraine they are allegedly distributing announcements with the inscription “Join the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, and below the abbreviation ZVO (institution of higher education) is crossed out. Also, in the announcement there is an inscription “To be a student in Russia or to be a defender in Ukraine”, a pink emblem of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and a phone number. It’s fake.

The fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project drew attention to the case. The number indicated in the photo (0800507028) belongs to the Territorial Defense Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and not to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Also, the experts turned to the Forces Troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for comment, and they said that “there are no such messages in any outdoor advertising in Ukraine ordered by the Troops”.

Also, this announcement was not found by searching Google Images. However, such a picture can be found on the site of stock photos, as well as through VPN on Yandex Images, which is banned in Ukraine. In Ukrainian online stores one can find paintings by numbers and posters with this pattern. As for the call to join the Ukrainian army, it was posted on the official Facebook page of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and in video format.

Russian propagandists systematically spread fake news about mobilization in Ukraine. Thus, Russian propaganda is trying to demoralize the Ukrainians and convince them that there is no one to fight, the army is weak and Ukraine will not win. Earlier, Detector Media denied the fake that dogs are being mobilized in Ukraine, and mass mobilization of students is being carried out at Ukrainian universities.

Anonymous telegram channels spreading pro-Russian rhetoric report that Ukraine allegedly lost 300,000 soldiers in the war with Russia. And that is why the Ukrainian Football Association posted a video with the announcement to hold “for 300 thousand heroes who died for Ukraine” “three matches with empty stadiums so that the souls of the dead would be with them on this day”. It's fake.

The case was noticed by the Ukrainian Football Association. On the eve of 200,000 “demilitarized” Russian soldiers, according to the information of the General Staff, a fake appeared about “the UAF and three memorial matches of the UPL clubs in empty stands”.  As the UAF notes, “to divert attention from their own large-scale losses in the war of conquest against Ukraine”.

Thus, propagandists are trying to divert attention from their own losses and sow discouragement among Ukrainians. Neither the president nor the military leadership of Ukraine are voicing figures and will not estimate the number of dead. Earlier, Detector Media denied the fake that, according to the Red Cross, Ukraine is suffering huge losses of fighters.

Kremlin propaganda media are spreading information citing American reports that the Ukrainian army is allegedly preparing to blow up the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The US military gave Ukraine sensors that help detect a surge of radiation, and, according to propaganda, this confirms that “the Americans are afraid of the explosion of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during the offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”. It's fake.

As the fact-checkers of the StopFake project note, the Russian propaganda used the New York Times article, took the information out of context and built its own fake on it. There is no information in the NYT publication about the “blowing up the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant”, however, the United States did indeed transfer sensors to Ukraine. The Nuclear Accident Support Team (NEST), affiliated with the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, has deployed sensors in Ukraine to warn of an emergency or report a radiation disaster. It has to do with Russia's nuclear blackmail.

Moreover, this equipment will be able to decipher the so-called atomic signature, which is formed after the explosion. If Russia wants to stage a provocation, hiding behind the Ukrainian flag, the US will be able to expose it.

Thus, propaganda is trying to intimidate not only Ukrainians, but the whole world with nuclear weapons. And also to shift the responsibility for Russia's crimes to the victim. Previously, Detector Media described how Russian propaganda uses intimidation tactics.

Such information was disseminated in Russian propaganda media, referring to the head of the Kharkiv military garrison, Serhii Melnyk. He believes that Ukraine “will never have enough people and equipment to defeat Russia”. Russian propaganda also stated that “the combat-ready part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was destroyed, and the professional military was out of action”. This is manipulation.

The fact-checkers of the StopFake project drew attention to the case. Russian propaganda media used an interview with General Serhii Melnyk for the Spanish edition of El País. Melnyk spoke about the defense of Kharkiv in 2022 and the upcoming counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2023. The general noted that Ukraine needs not only a large amount of equipment and ammunition, but also the military, so that rotations can be carried out more often. It was this statement that took the propaganda out of context and created the manipulation that the Ukrainian army had “already been killed”.

After the Russian propaganda media began to spread this manipulation, Serhii Melnyk explained his words. He noted that although the fighters are heroic, however, they are exhausted, some are injured, and someone dies. He also noted that Ukraine has enough resources for a counteroffensive, but the most important thing is to get enough weapons to save the lives of the fighters.

This is not the first time Russian propaganda wants to undermine the reputation of the Ukrainian military leadership and cause discouragement among Ukrainian society by manipulating the topic of a counteroffensive. Like, even the military leaders do not believe in the victory of Ukraine over Russia. Earlier, Detector Media talked about the manipulation that if the Ukrainian military fails the counteroffensive, the West will allegedly stop supporting Ukraine.

Such information was disseminated in social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. The reports say that the Lviv regional state administration “ordered” employees of budgetary institutions to donate blood for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Like, if they don’t donate blood, they “remain without a bonus”. As evidence of the publication, the authors of the messages cite an announcement-order, which, they say, is placed in state institutions for workers. In addition, propagandists add a screenshot of the correspondence on the telegram, where the user comments on the message of the local telegram channel and claims that “Lviv residents are forced to donate blood”. It is not true.

The specialists of the VoxCheck project worked on the case, and found that the order itself did not mention forced blood donation. It notes that blood can be donated voluntarily, not forced. Fact-checkers did not verify the authenticity of the order itself, however, reliable and relevant information is posted there. The authors of the messages simply came up with a different content for the “forced” order. According to Ukrainian legislation, blood donation is exclusively voluntary. That is, a person cannot be forced to donate blood, since the patient gives written consent before the procedure. The questionnaire can be completed online, however, according to fact-checkers, many blood centers do not accept such applications. In most cases, the patient must fill out the consent to donate in the presence of a doctor.

As for the message itself from the user in one of the local telegram channels, the fact checkers did not find this comment. As they explain, one comment is obviously not evidence that “Lviv residents are forced to donate blood”. Probably, it was forged and distributed in the Ukrainian telegram segment, and then deleted.

There is no significant shortage of blood in Ukraine, which means there is no need to force people to donate it either. At the same time, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine indicates that sometimes there is a need for a rare blood type, but there is no critical shortage. In April, the agency also said that thanks to donors, the daily supply of erythrocyte blood components has increased, but there is a shortage of donors with negative rhesus blood.

Propagandists systematically spread fakes and manipulation about the alleged lack of blood in Ukraine. Thus, the authors of the messages are trying to convince that everything is bad in Ukraine and that there are many wounded who are not being given worthy assistance, since there is no blood. We managed to refute several fakes on this topic. For example, one of the fakes said that Ukraine forbids all foreign citizens from becoming blood donors. We also verified the authenticity of a message on social networks that a Ukrainian woman left her husband because he was “transfused with the blood of Russians”.

Such a message was circulated on social networks, in particular on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. The reports say that the military of the 128th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine beat a man with his hands tied with a stick on his back. Like, it was a Brazilian volunteer who tried to escape from the position. A bound man in military uniform asked in Portuguese “not to beat him”. As proof, the authors add a video showing the process of beating an allegedly Brazilian volunteer with the participation of the Ukrainian military. At the same time, the authors of the messages note that the video was found on the phone of one of the prisoners of war of the Ukrainian military. It is not true.

The fact-checkers of the StopFake project drew attention to the case, and they investigated that the video was not real. As analysts explain, this is another production of Russian propaganda because the Brazilians are indeed among the volunteers but do not serve in the 128th brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Like other volunteers from other countries, the Brazilians serve only in the Foreign Legion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In addition, StopFake analysts checked the video using language detection tools. That's how they figured out that the bound man in the video was speaking Portuguese. In Brazil, the official language is Portuguese. However, later the fact-checkers turned to Brazilian colleagues to clarify whether it was possible to determine from the pronunciation of the man in the video that he was Brazilian. They were told that the man was definitely not a native speaker and that he was studying European Portuguese, not Brazilian Portuguese. Actually, European Portuguese is spoken, in particular, in Portugal, and not in Brazil. These two varieties of Portuguese, for example, have a significant difference in phonetics that can be easily heard and recorded.

Such information appeared in the Russian propaganda media. In particular, the reports said that The Times allegedly published information about the losses in the Armed Forces of Ukraine that shocked the public. Like, the losses are so great that they shock not only the public, but also NATO instructors. It seems that the Alliance has not encountered this before. The authors of the reports also add that the British publication allegedly claims that the nature of the injuries is severe, and doctors need to constantly choose “who would live and who would die”. However, this is fake. The publication did not publish materials of this kind.

The fact-checkers of The Insider drew attention to the case. In fact, The Times published an article entitled “Putin’s forces will face a dead end in Donbas, Kyiv vows”. The article says Zelenskiy said his soldiers kill hundreds of Wagner fighters every day as they try to outflank the city in a frontal attack. “In less than a week, starting on March 6, in the Bakhmut direction alone, we managed to destroy more than 1,100 enemy soldiers, an irretrievable loss of Russia right there, near Bakhmut”, Zelensky said. The article also said that Ukrainian forces would also suffer losses, in particular, the Russians reported that more than 220 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in 24 hours. “But none of these figures can be independently verified”, the article said.

That is, The Times did not write about excessive and shocking losses in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The journalists only described that Ukraine and Russia report enemy losses. However, Russia needs such fakes to create the appearance that the situation at the front is constantly deteriorating, and the Ukrainian army is weak and incapable of combat.

Pro-Russian telegram channels write about this. They say that Ukraine itself does not take any decision on military operations. Allegedly, the Ukrainians are assigned the role of “cannon fodder”. Like, this is confirmed by the visit of CIA Director William Burns to Kyiv to give instructions to Zelenskyi. The United States is slowly “pushing through” the decisions they need, affecting the speed of military assistance. Allegedly, sanctions against Russia are introduced gradually as an element of bargaining with Russia.

These messages nourish the “outside governance” narrative in Ukraine that has been going on since before the full blown upheaval. Also, Russian propaganda has repeatedly distributed memes that in Ukraine Russia is at war with the United States, NATO or the “collective West”. Thus, propagandists are trying to undermine the credibility of both the Ukrainian authorities and Western partners and destabilize the situation in the country. The United States is helping Ukraine resist Russian aggression, so Russia is trying to discredit the aid in every possible way.

Earlier, for this purpose, they wrote that the United States is using Ukraine as a testing ground for the development of weapons and the law on lend-lease involves huge debts, and that America is not profitable for Ukraine's victory. Like, Ukraine should fight on behalf of NATO. They also wrote that allegedly the United States is pushing Europe into the abyss.

Russian media and pro-Russian resources are spreading a video in which a Russian military man says that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were preparing an offensive in the summer of 2022 against Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog. This is allegedly evidenced by marks on maps found on abandoned Ukrainian positions near Avdiyivka. It's fake.

According to VoxCheck, the Russian military shows a Soviet, not a Ukrainian map. There are no marks in Ukrainian on it, only in Russian. Mariupol is designated as Zhdanov - this is how the city was called from 1948 to 1989. That is, the map was created no later than 1989. On it one can also notice the stamp “For official use only” in Russian language but not in Ukrainian. There is no information about who exactly and why put the marks on the map that the military demonstrates. Thus, Russia is trying to make Ukraine an aggressor, to undermine its authority in the international arena.

Earlier, Russian propaganda spread messages that Ukraine had become a laboratory for testing Western weapons, that Ukraine was a biological threat. The propagandists also spread messages that the United States allegedly conducted training and training in Ukraine with pathogens of especially dangerous diseases.

Russian propaganda media disseminate information that supposedly the Ukrainian ambassador Vadym Prystaiko, in an interview with Newsweek, acknowledged the “colossal losses” of the Ukrainian army and noted that people were dying “in the interests of the West”.

In fact, the enemy media refer to a quote taken out of context. The diplomat said that people are dying from Russian shelling and rocket attacks. There were no words of military losses “in the interests of the West” at all.

According to StopFake analysts, the quote, manipulated by the Russian media, was about the destruction and deaths from a full-scale invasion that has been going on for almost a year. In addition, he meant not only the military, but also civilians suffering from Russian occupation. Russian propaganda writes about the “interests of the West”, although in fact the diplomat did not mention them. This is a manipulation aimed at blaming Ukraine's allies for its losses.

Russian media often write about the West and its involvement in the war in Ukraine. In particular, they manipulate the topics of arms supply and call Volodymyr Zelenskyi a “puppet” in the West's war against Russia. Recently, the media of the enemy also wrote that allegedly Kyiv is not allowed to negotiate and stop the war, although Russia is trying to put ultimatums on the terms of the negotiation process.

Russian propaganda media disseminate information about the recent sharp drop in the combat capability of the Ukrainian army. Allegedly, such a statement was made by the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Hanna Maliar. The authors of the messages add that the Ukrainian army is already exhausted and most people cannot go through the military realities. That is why, according to propagandists, the Ukrainian army is no longer combat-ready. However, this is manipulation.

Analysts of the Voxcheck project investigated this case and found that on January 8, Hanna Maliar published a message in her telegram channel, where she talked about the difficult situation in Soledar, Donetsk region, and how the Ukrainian army is resisting the invaders. However, she did not say that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were sharply losing their combat capability. On the contrary, she stressed that in some areas of Donbas, the military is successfully breaking through.

However, she said that Ukrainians need to understand how civilians go through difficult moral and physical ordeal during the war. Enemies distorted the context of the official's quote.

Propagandists spread this message to destabilize the situation in Ukrainian society. Against the backdrop of heavy fighting in the Bakhmut direction, pro-Kremlin telegram channels and media resort to various manipulations and fakes to make Ukrainians despair of the Ukrainian army. Propagandists seek to create the appearance of losing Ukraine, because its army can no longer withstand the fight against the enemy.

We recall that earlier Detector Media wrote about the manipulation of propagandists, that the Ukrainian leadership allegedly forced the Armed Forces of Ukraine to leave the territory of Bakhmut due to the inability of the military to fight.

Such a thesis is distributed in pro-Russian and propaganda telegram channels, which claims that relations between the Ukrainian army and Zelenskyi have deteriorated significantly. Like, all this is due to the constant defeats of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and, as a result, Zelenskyi's discontent. Russian propaganda claims that Zelenskyi is losing his authority and his power.

With this message, the propagandists are trying to reach several goals. First, to discredit the President and expose him as an incompetent head of state. They build the image of an evil, greedy to victory leader. Allegedly, Zelenskyi demands constant victories and no defeats from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, at the same time, the army suffers from tyranny. Secondly, to undermine the confidence of the army in the President, who is allegedly under pressure from the leadership and is trying in every possible way to please the top.

Such a message is spread by pro-Russian telegram channels. Like, censorship has become the main tool of power for concealment of corruption, criminal orders or command errors. It seems that the situation with the shelling clearly demonstrated this - the Ukrainian authorities are “rejoicing” at the shelling of Makiyivka, but they are silent about Druzhkivka.

Pro-Russian telegram channels write that the Americans are allegedly satisfied with the state of affairs in Ukraine, in particular, the course of the war. Like, the Americans understand that statistically there are four times more Russians than Ukrainians, but they “like everything”.

To promote the message, the Russian propaganda took the words of US Senator Lindsey Graham out of context. Graham said that he likes the way the United States is now supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia and this is very important. It was about the fact that US assistance allows Ukraine not to give up. The propagandists are shifting the focus to the literal perception of Graham's words about “struggle to the last Ukrainian” and manipulate the reference to statistics.

Russian media and pro-Russian resources are spreading messages that Europe will get tired of supporting Ukraine if the Ukrainian army fails to demonstrate new successes on the battlefield. Allegedly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi understands that prolonging the conflict will entail criticism and therefore signals to the West that in 2023 he will be “ready for peace talks”. Like, that's why Zelenskyi initiated the convening of a special peace formula summit this winter.

To spread such messages to an international audience, the propagandists used the words of the former national security adviser to former US President George W. Bush, Michael Allen, who has repeatedly spoken out in support of Russia.

This was written by Russian propagandists, anonymous TV channels and media. Allegedly, near Bakhmut, Russian soldiers killed an ardent nationalist, a former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, a participant in the Revolution of Dignity, Mykhailo Havryliuk.

In fact, Mykhailo Havryliuk is alive. This was confirmed by his wife, Yaryna Havryliuk, and the godfather of Havryliuk's wife, Myroslav, reported it to TSN.ua.

“Friends, everything is fine with Mykhailo. He is alive. This is another clear demonstration that telegram channels are evil,” Yaryna said.

Myroslav added that Mykhailo is now in Kolomyia.

Russian propaganda spreads information that France has recognized the futility of the attempts of the Ukrainian army to defeat the Russian one, and writes about the “disappointing situation” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine due to heavy losses. Propagandists refer to an article in the French economic publication La Tribune. But this is manipulation.

The article, which belongs to an anonymous group of analysts called Mars, makes no claims about the “disappointing situation of the APU”. The fact-checkers from Insider drew attention to this. The article says whether Ukraine can defeat Russia on the battlefield, liberating only by military means the entire territory of Ukraine up to the borders of 1991. The authors of the French edition are convinced that it is not, because one should take a "realistic" look at this war, offering not only Ukraine, but also guarantees of Russia's security. Ukraine is invited to “guarantee entry into NATO”, but at the same time to abandon the territories that will be a “demilitarized zone under the control of the UN”: we are talking about the Donetsk, Luhansk regions, Crimea and parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. In the future, the authors write, it will be necessary to hold a referendum on the self-determination of these regions, and they will become “independent”, “a buffer zone between NATO and Russia”.

Recently, "security guarantees for Russia" were also offered by French President Emmanuel Macron. There are also some political forces in the EU and the US that are trying to promote the idea of understanding Russia's interests and security guarantees for an aggressor country that no one has attacked. This is presented as “realpolitik” as opposed to “ideal ideas” that cannot be implemented. The same “real politicians” believed that Russia would capture Ukraine in three days. The anonymous French think tank also writes about “an ideal world in which Russia must withdraw troops from Ukrainian territories" and “a reality in which the Russian army cannot lose the war, given the nuclear deterrence force”.

Such articles and statements are used by Russian propaganda to convince the audience that Ukraine will not win the war and that it is losing support in the West. Although the reality is that none of Russia's plans to seize Ukraine came true, and it is Russia that keeps losing the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and Ukraine is supported by most European countries, the United States and their partners in the world.

This was stated by the former Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov, who fled Ukraine during the Revolution of Dignity together with the ex - President Viktor Yanukovych.

Currently, Azarov is in Russia and regularly acts as an expert on the Ukrainian issue. In one of his last appeals, he assures that 50,000 women who served in the Armed Forces were allegedly killed in Ukraine during the war. And this happened through the fault of Volodymyr Zelenskyi. His words were circulated by pro-Russian telegrams and other Russian resources.

Based on an article in the AR about women who volunteered to serve in the Ukrainian army, Azarov calculated that out of 57,000, only 6,000 remained alive today. “Where have over 50,000 women gone?”, Azarov asks rhetorically.

In fact, AR journalists told how volunteers help female servicemen with various equipment. They cite information that 57,000 women serve in the army, “at least 6,000 Ukrainian women are at or near the front line in such roles as paramedics and intelligence officers, as well as snipers and artillery”. Based on this quote, Azarov concludes that if 6,000 Ukrainian women are at the front, then the remaining 51,000 “died, were injured or were captured”. But it's not like that.

Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov in November of this year provided the following data: “59,786 women are currently serving in the Armed Forces. At the same time, 18,000 women are civilian workers in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. 41,000 women occupy precisely military positions and 5,000 are right at the front lines”.

Reznikov clarified that since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 101 female soldiers have died in the war against Russian invaders, another 50 female defenders are missing, and 100 have been injured.

Russian propaganda promotes such fakes to show the weakness of the Ukrainian army, they say, women and teenagers are fighting there, Zelenskyi sends them to their deaths. Such “facts” are thrown into the information space in order to show a professional Russian army against this background and hide Russia’s failures at the front.

Such information appeared in the Russian-language media space. In particular, messages are distributed in anonymous telegram channels broadcasting a pro-Russian position. They say that a new group of radical Islamists went from northeast Syria to Ukraine to fight as mercenaries on the side of Kyiv. However, there is no evidence in the propagandists' reports to support such a claim. Analysts of the EU vs Disinfo project drew attention to the case.

This message is spread by the Russian propaganda media. Like, Valerii Zaluzhnyi admitted in an interview that the Russian military leader inspires fear in him. As StopFake writes, the message about the recognition of the fear of the Russian Surovikin by Zaluzhnyi is based on an interview of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the British edition of The Economist. The interview of the Commander-in-Chief is real, but he did not say that he was afraid of Surovikin. It's fake. In fact, Valerii Zaluzhnyi spoke in an interview about the course of the war, the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and also gave an assessment of Russian actions on the battlefield.

Evidence of the prosperity of Nazism in Ukraine is being disseminated in social networks and telegram channels. They write that allegedly for the Kharkiv operation, the servicemen of the 92nd brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were awarded “Steel Crosses”, like the “Iron Crosses”, which were awarded in the Wehrmacht to “the biggest thugs”. Like, the awards have a similar design. It is not true.

The “Steel Cross” badge has nothing to do with the Nazi “Iron Cross”, moreover, there are no Nazi symbols on it. The Ukrainian award “Steel Cross” combined the symbols of the regimental power of the Zaporizhzhia Host (crossed feathers) and successful campaigns against enemies (the heraldic sign of the Ukrainian hetman Konstiantyn Ostrozkyi, who defeated the Moscow army near Orsha in 1514). In addition, the modern award was created on the prototype of the “Iron Cross of the UNR Army”, founded back in 1920 by Symon Petliura after the First winter campaign.

As StopFake writes, the Wehrmacht really had an award called the “Iron Cross”. However, it is wrong to consider this military order exclusively Nazi. The fact is that the order was originally founded in 1813 in the Kingdom of Prussia, it was awarded to the military who distinguished themselves in the war against the Napoleonic army. After the establishment of the Weimar Republic in Germany, it was decided to abolish all former orders. The Order of the Iron Cross was restored in 1939 in Nazi Germany and lasted until 1945. In modern Germany, it is permissible to wear the Iron Cross from the Second World War, but only without a swastika.

Such letters with a request to participate in the “charitable financial assistance program for the Armed Forces of Ukraine” are sent on behalf of the head of the Rivne regional military administration.

False letters were found in Rivne military regional administration.

Fraudsters promise that for this help, the business will allegedly receive a reduction in income tax in proportion to the donated charitable amount.

“This is the work of scammers. They are already being dealt with by law enforcement agencies”, the Rivne district police department assured and stressed that they never send out such appeals. The humanitarian activities of the administration are carried out as publicly as possible.

This information was disseminated by the Russian media with reference to the statement of a certain soldier of the Russian intelligence special forces. They say that Ukraine, for lack of personnel, is allegedly forced to send minors to the front. As evidence, propagandists cite a video where the same “teenagers” are allegedly recorded.

As the journalists of the StopFake fact-checking project noted, the video shows not teenagers, but adult soldiers serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It was filmed by a military paramedic with the call sign Chaika and posted on TikTok in October 2022.

The girl’s name is Yelyzaveta, she is 23 years old. She has got two higher education diplomas and has been serving in the Ukrainian army since the beginning of Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine.

A number of telegram channels with the letter Z in their names have disseminated information about the accident in which the ex-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Turchynov died. This is a fake, which Turchynov himself denied.

“Don’t even wait for this”, Turchynov wrote on his Facebook.

The channels wrote that it was the “bloody pastor”, as Turchynov’s propagandists call him, who unleashed a war in Donbas. In fact, it was unleashed by Russia, starting the supply of weapons and sending its military to seize power in various cities of Donbas.

Anonymous telegram channels write about this. Like, the morgues of Zaporizhzhia are overflowing with the bodies of the dead Ukrainian military, so the city council decided to create another morgue. It is not true.

The original source of the fake was the telegram channel of the collaborator from Zaporizhzhia Volodymyr Rohanov. According to the fact-checkers of the Zaporizhzhia Investigation Center, in fact, the city council decided to create a public utility company “Patological and anatomical bureau”. The need to create such a bureau is justified by the fact that Zaporizhzhia has communal hospitals that do not have pathoanatomical departments. The pathological and anatomical bureau has nothing to do with the storage of the bodies of the dead in Zaporizhzhia: neither civilians nor military personnel.

Also, the fact checkers established that the picture published by Rohov was actually taken in the morgue of the Russian city of Novokuznietsk in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This information was disseminated by Russian resources. Like, the residents of Lysychansk told a Russian propagandist about this. Allegedly, according to them, the Ukrainian military shot at civilians from March to May 2022 in order to film propaganda materials. It is not true.

According to The Insider fact-checkers, from March to May, there were Russian troops near Lysychansk that could have shelled the city.

From the 20th of March, Russian troops tried to take the city of Rubizhne, located 18 km from Lysychansk, that is, they were directly on the outskirts of it. On May 13, the city was completely occupied. The effective range of the Russian Grad multiple launch rocket system is 21 km, the Msta-S howitzer is 24.7 km, and the Giacint-S is 28.4 km.

This is reported by Turkish media. As proof, they cite a photo in which two men in balaclavas hold in their hands the inscription “Will to the peoples - death to empires” and “Glory to the resistance of Rojava!”

Stop Fake fact-checkers found that this publication led to a wave of indignation in the Turkish media community, because Turkey considers Kurdish military formations to be terrorist. “Scandalous support for the RKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and YPG (People’s Defense Units) by the Ukrainian military!”, “Ukraine forgot about Turkey’s help”, with such headlines, the Turkish media circulated this photo.

There is no evidence of the involvement of the Ukrainian military in this photo. The photo first appeared on the Russian telegram channel Hevale, which publishes information about Kurdistan and the Middle East. From there, it was spread by Turkish media and social media users. The Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey said that the photo is "a Russian provocation and has nothing to do with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Ukraine".

Pro-Russian telegram channels write about this. According to one of the propagandists, the alleged number of deserters in the Armed Forces of Ukraine has increased after the statement of the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, about the losses of Ukrainian troops. This is not true, according to the Center for Counteracting Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

By spreading this fake, Russian propaganda uses the tactics of reflection. According to British intelligence, it is Russia that is creating "protective detachments" to catch deserters among its own soldiers, fleeing because of low morale and unwillingness to fight.

 Such information is disseminated by pro-Russian telegram channels. Allegedly, this was said in an interview with “HB” (NV) radio by the commander of the volunteer battalion "Svoboda" (Freedom), captain of the National Guard of Ukraine Petro Kuzyk. In fact, Kuzyk didn't say that. The propagandists took the sentence out of context and changed it to their advantage. In an interview with Kuzyk, the word “they” means Russians. The commander was asked about the human losses near Bakhmut, where the enemy is trying to attack. “They are huge. They don't even count the body. Fields, landings in front of positions, all littered with corpses. I watched them: they dragged somebody to bury, pulled off a warm sweater from him and began to put them on right there”, said Kuzyk. One of the popular tactics of Russian propagandists is to distort the words of the Ukrainian military and pass off Russian defeats as Ukrainian ones. Thus, they are trying to hide the fact that Russian soldiers have always been “meat” for the Kremlin and that behind each of their attacks on Ukrainian soil, there are hundreds of dead Russians who will never be buried. 

Such messages are distributed by pro-Russian telegram channels. Like, not only the Ukrainian authorities, but also Western politicians know the truth about the “shocking” losses of the Ukrainian army. However, this truth is hidden from Ukrainians. Like, Ursula von der Leyen let slip about the losses, but the video of the performance was immediately corrected.

Thus, Russian propaganda uses the tactics of reflection. In practice, the expression " No losses in the armed forces of Russia" from the very beginning of the great war became a meme. It was Russia that for a long time did not recognize its losses, and subsequently significantly underestimated them. At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities have never denied the losses, moreover, they emphasize the price that Ukraine pays every day, although they do not clearly state the number of dead.

Social networks and pro-Russian telegram channels are circulating a collage of photos of one woman putting makeup that looks like wounds on the face of another. The last photo shows how three people allegedly provide medical assistance to the injured person. In the captions to the photo, they note that this is how the Ukrainian military is supposedly preparing “fakes” with the victims. Like, these photos were received from the phone of “employees of the Ukrainian Center for Information and Psychological Operations (CIPsO)”. It's fake.

In fact, the photo shows medical assistance training from military doctors in 2016. The VoxCheck fact checker, using PimEyes, a people-search service on the web, and a reverse search in Google Images, found the original photos and the names of the people on them. These are representatives of TacCat, a Ukrainian organization that conducts first aid courses, held, in particular, with the help of paint and mannequins.

Russian propagandists write about this on social networks. Allegedly, citizens of Ukraine are being detained and accused of collaborating with the Russian occupiers.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that such information is not true.

Such posts are periodically shared on social networks. They add that these are allegedly Ukrainian servicemen and women who went to defend their country. Sometimes photos of injured people are distributed with such captions. Like, the military is losing limbs protecting all of us, and no one welcomes them. However, these are not always true photos.

Fact checkers of the project “Beyond the News” recorded the re-circulation of a photograph of a man with amputated legs and the caption “this hero defended his homeland. Today is his birthday. No one wished him a happy birthday". The post was liked by 3.5 thousand people, and shared by almost a thousand. A 33-year-old Mark Camamile from the UK is in the picture. In 2016, he came down with what he thought was the flu. However, when Mark went to the hospital, he was diagnosed with pneumonia, which developed into a rare form of septicemia. As a result, the man had to amputate both legs and his right arm.

The motivation for spreading photos with fake comments is unclear. Fact checkers suggest that because of such messages they want to arouse depressive moods in people, such as “our heroes risk their lives, die, but at the same time no one remembers them, no one needs them”. In general, a lot of messages are distributed on social networks with requests to congratulate strangers, especially children or military personnel, on some occasions: their birthday, marriage or other holidays. We urge you to check the information in such messages so as not to become part of incomprehensible manipulations.

Earlier, Detector Media talked about a similar case when they asked to greet a dead military man on his birthday. Fake photos of supposedly Ukrainian soldiers who sleep in snowdrifts during the war are also being distributed. 

Russian media write about this with reference to the words of collaborator Rohov. Like, the Ukrainian authorities use people as a human shield to cover military facilities. Allegedly, even large families, the elderly, and students were banned from leaving. Allegedly, in Zaporizhzhia, the Armed Forces of Ukraine use the “layer cake” tactics, when the military live surrounded by civilians, and the military depots are surrounded by civilian objects. It is not true.

There are no restrictions for residents of Zaporizhzhia to travel within Ukraine or abroad. For example, there are available tickets on the Ukrzaliznytsia website. For the security of Ukrainians, there are restrictions on leaving for the occupied territories after the shelling of a column of civilians at the checkpoint on October 2. Propagandists also systematically report that supposedly Ukrainian servicemen are hiding behind the civilian population. However, such information is denied every time by local authorities.

Pro-Russian websites continue to write about the alleged conflict between the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi. This time the propagandists used an article from the British daily newspaper Financial Times "We hit them with slingshots': Ukraine's iron general shows his mettle" to make their lies more convincing.

Like, in the publication "a lot of attention is paid to the issue of the conflict between Zaluzhnyi and Zelenskyi".

The Financial Times article dedicated to Valerii Zaluzhnyi describes Zaluzhnyi's qualities, his tactics and style, thanks to which the Ukrainian army so successfully liberated Kherson and the Kharkiv region, and was able to defend Kyiv. They also mentioned his biography, how the general reached his current role, and what experience he had before.

The publication has no facts about the conflict with President Zelenskyi, but only suggests anonymous sources that Zaluzhnyi was asked to bring down his level of publicity. At the same time, the article further states that the General himself does not attribute victory and success in battles with the Russian army to himself, and does not lose the opportunity to thank the soldiers for their contribution to the future victory.

Allegedly, this was stated at a briefing by the Chairman of the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, General Mark Milley, Russian websites reported. They say that the American military department calls the chances of success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the battlefield "low".

General Milli didn't actually say that. He only suggested that the likelihood that Ukraine will liberate all of its territory exclusively by military means in the next few weeks is negligible. At the same time, Milley stressed that the likelihood of a Russian victory over Ukraine is "close to zero" because Russia has not achieved its strategic goals in Ukraine, and now cannot achieve its operational and tactical goals as well.

For the past few years, as soon as the first snow falls, a photo of a man sleeping outdoors in the snow has been circulating on social networks. Allegedly, this is a Ukrainian military man and this is the “price of free Ukraine”.

This is a photo fake. Analysts at Beyond the News found that the photographs are at least 10 years old and were taken before the Russian-Ukrainian war. It is not the Ukrainian military, but depicts the training of the so-called Russian special forces for survival.

Previously, this photo illustrated tearful Ukrainian poetry, messages raising funds for warm clothes for the Ukrainian military, patriotic messages in Georgian “about the price of peace” and even news from December 2014 that “ATO soldiers spend the night in the trenches under a “blanket” from the snow".

This was reported in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. A recently updated version of this system was successfully presented at the annual NATO Tide Sprint conference of experts and developers. Shortly thereafter, the enemy began to attack the system and disseminate information through a network of propaganda resources about the alleged kink and access to its data in order to discredit it. The information systems and tools used by the Ukrainian defenders are a strategic target for the enemy, as is the country's critical or energy infrastructure. The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reports that now the system is working stably, the data in it is securely protected, no unauthorized intrusions have been recorded. IT developers and cybersecurity specialists monitor hostile activity in real time.

In the Russian and Georgian segments of Facebook, a Tiktok video is being shared, in which a man dressed in a Ukrainian military uniform walks through the forest and portrays suffering on camera. In the posts accompanying this video, it is explained that this is apparently how Ukrainian propaganda works, which tries to convince Europe of the successes of the Armed Forces and the heroic struggle of the Ukrainian military by shooting staged videos. In fact, as the fact-checking project Mythdetector found out, the video is a fragment of the filming of a music video by Ukrainian singer Hanna Hanina. There is a real Ukrainian actor in the video, and his name is Petro Sherekin. He lives in Germany. The video shows that these are staged shots, but they don't try to pass them off as actual filming by the Ukrainian military or to use them for propaganda purposes. It is just filming the workflow while working on the song "Kolyskova" music video.

During the air alert throughout Ukraine (October 19), pro-Russian Telegram channels spread messages that allegedly the Ukrainian air defense couldn't cope with mass shelling. The Ukrainian authorities allegedly inform about the work of the Air Defense Forces, and local officials deliberately write about it. Then the authorities wait until the missiles hit the target. If the witnesses don't record the "arrivals" on video, they report that they have successfully shot down all aerial targets. Telegram users deny the propaganda message. At the same time, many channels that report on explosions and air raids post numerous photos of the work of Ukrainian air defense in the sky. There are also messages about the operation of air defense systems from users (without identification of the systems` location).

Russian propaganda manipulates official sources' reports to spread panic among the townspeople directly during the shelling.

Russian media spread such reports, allegedly quoting the commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Serhii Nayev. Serhii Nayev allegedly believes that with the joint efforts of Russia and Belarus, it will take no more than two to three months to "capture" Kyiv. It is manipulation.

In fact, Serhii Nayev spoke about the situation on the border with Belarus on the air of the national telethon. He noted that the accumulation of Russian equipment and troops together with the armed forces of Belarus indicates the possibility of a repeated attack on Kyiv. Nayev added that the Ukrainian military constantly monitors the level of this threat, and appropriate countermeasures are taken. According to Nayev, Ukraine is now ready for a possible attack from Belarus. Russian propaganda distorted the commander's words of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine about a potential threat and gave the desired information as facts. The fact-checkers of the StopFake project drew attention to the manipulation. Russian propaganda uses the possible joining of the Belarusian army in hostilities as a tactic to lure Ukrainians.

During the massive rocket attacks on October 10, Russian propaganda spread fakes that simultaneously with the rocket attacks on the cities of Ukraine, an offensive from Belarus and along the entire front line began. Propagandists also claim that Ukraine is trying in every possible way to draw Belarus into the war.

Pro-Russian Telegram channels spread this information to discredit Ukrainian volunteers. Voluntary donations won't allegedly save the country, whose economy is bursting at the seams, and foreign partners are in no hurry to support it. In this way, Russian propaganda promotes another message - Ukraine isn't supported in the West.

Propagandists suggest buying gas stoves, firewood, and generators instead of donating to the army because this will allegedly help "as soon as tomorrow." The fact that it is necessary to prepare for winter doesn't exclude the need for help from the army. Artificial confrontation is one of the common tactics of propagandists. Moreover, propaganda writes that donations of 200-300-400 hryvnias "only create an emotional background," but any amount of help is important, saves lives, and helps the Ukrainian army. One of the reasons for the active discrediting of the volunteer movement was the record collection of funds for the purchase of drones for the Ukrainian army. At first, the propagandists accused Serhiy Prytula and Serhiy Sternenko of "cynically collecting money" during the attacks. Then began a wave of discrediting the actual drones that were planned to be purchased. Both their cost and technical characteristics were manipulated in the messages. In this way, the propagandists tried to show the allegedly dishonest work of Ukrainian volunteers and the ineffectiveness of spending the collected funds. Moreover, propagandists often manipulate the topic of reporting in the work of volunteers; allegedly, not all reports on the purchase of equipment or certain devices for the army can be made public through social networks because the enemy can use this information. However, propagandists manipulate emotions by leaving facts out of context. Since 2014, the Ukrainian volunteer movement has supported the Ukrainian army significantly. That is why propagandists try in every possible way to devalue and discredit the work of volunteers. More details.

Pro-Russian Telegram channels and media write about this. The Russian army is allegedly opposed not by the Armed Forces, but by foreigners, "NATO armies", "battalions of Poles", etc. According to Russian intelligence, the Ukrainian army is currently filled with foreign mercenaries by 30%, and soon the number will exceed 50%. That's when the message will allegedly be made that NATO troops are fighting in Ukraine. It is a fake.

According to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, about 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers are resisting Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The number of foreign volunteers is estimated from several hundred to several thousand people and can`t be "half" of the Armed Forces.

In August 2022, the General Staff of the Armed Forces reported that no more than 100 foreign servicemen are serving in the Ukrainian army under contract. As StopFake writes, in March 2022, about 20,000 volunteers applied to participate in the International Legion of Terror Defense of Ukraine. The legion includes fighters from all continents. The largest number of representatives are from the USA, Great Britain, Poland, the Baltic countries, Canada, Norway, Finland, and Denmark. In general, it is 70–80% of foreign volunteers. According to the Embassy of Ukraine in the USA, more than three thousand Americans applied to join the Legion. However, the final number of foreigners is not announced by the military command for security reasons. The indicated numbers are only applications, and it is unknown how many of those who expressed a desire to go to the front actually went to fight.

Russian propaganda spreads fakes that the NATO army is allegedly opposing them in Ukraine to justify the failures of their army for the Russians. Moreover, the agitprop said that allegedly the Ukrainian military can`t reach the level of military training according to NATO standards. Furthermore, the successful counteroffensive of the Armed Forces is due to the Pentagon's direct participation in the development of the plan.

Propaganda anonymous Telegram channels spread this photo fact.

In fact, the Russians drew the "swastika" on the bracelet of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, themselves, using a compressed image, which made the Scandinavian symbol distorted. Journalist Roman Tsymbalyuk pointed out the propagandists' lies in his Telegram channel. "The Russian conscript is assured to give his life for Zaluzhnyi's bracelet. If so, let them take a closer look at what he looks like before he leaves for the other side of the Kerch Strait in a black bag," he wrote and published a photo of an analog of Zaluzhnyi's bracelet.

The tragic news was spread by Russian propaganda media and pro-Russian bloggers concerning Rodion Miroshnyk, who calls himself the ambassador of the occupied part of the Luhansk region. It allegedly happened near Kupiansk. The wounded were taken to a hospital in Luhansk.

During the spread of other fake, the propagandists made several inaccuracies. As fact-checkers from the "Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center" reported, all reports of this type do not contain videos and photos from the "place of the event". All illustrative photos used by propagandists have nothing to do with this fake.

The Kremlin propaganda media could not determine the date of the "shelling" and, at the same time, claimed that it was September 29, September 27, and September 25.

Propagandists are confused about the types of weapons with which they allegedly "shelled the column of refugees." Some talk about firearms, and some - about artillery.

The Security Service of Ukraine confirmed that at the end of September, in the so-called "grey zone" between the occupied Svatov in the Luhansk region and the liberated Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, the Russians shelled a civilian convoy of seven cars.

"At least 20 people died, including 10 children. A brutal attack on civilians was made by a sabotage and reconnaissance group of the occupiers - they shelled six old cars and one Gazelle truck closely with firearms. The enemy once again proved that his goal was the destruction of all Ukrainians, regardless of age and gender. The occupiers are defeated on the battlefield and respond to these losses and hopelessness by murdering civilians" said the acting head of SSU Vasyl Malyuk.

Such "news" of Russian propaganda is another attempt by the Kremlin to accuse the Ukrainian army of "atrocities" typical of the Russian military. On September 30, due to a Russian rocket attack on a civilian humanitarian convoy in Zaporizhzhia, which was trying to leave for the occupied territory, 30 people died, and almost a hundred were injured.

Anonymous Telegram channels promote the thesis that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is the return of territories, not the liberation of people.

For example, the Ukrainian military scares residents with death who do not meet them with flags and pancakes. Moreover, they also do not let people go into the territory occupied by Russia, shooting cars on the road.

Propagandists began to actively reproduce these thoughts after the SSU discovered a convoy of cars shelled by the Russians in the so-called "gray zone" in the Kharkiv region, where 20 people died, including 10 children, as well as after a convoy of cars was shot by Russian missiles in Zaporizhzhia, where were mostly locals who transported humanitarian aid to their relatives in the occupied territory.

People with different views remained alive in the liberated Ukrainian military towns and villages: some were waiting for the Ukrainian army, and others wanted to return to the USSR and spoke favorably of the Russian occupiers. However, no one from the military or SSU persecuted them, moreover, no one threatened them with death for their views. For example, in liberated Izyum, some Ukrainians with pro-Russian views freely gave interviews to Ukrainian journalists, and no one threatened them with violence or harm.

Russian media write about this with reference to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. Allegedly, he estimated the losses of the Ukrainian armed forces at tens of thousands of dead. It is not true.

As StopFake writes, the American general did not make any statements about the losses of the Ukrainian army. At the same time, Milley said that tens of thousands of civilians were killed due to Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. He also drew attention to the fact that almost 15 million Ukrainians became refugees as a result of the war. Despite this, Russia continues to attack civilians and critical infrastructure.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin noted that Ukrainian defenders are using Western weapons very effectively, in response to which Russia is stepping up aggression against civilians. Terrorism against civilians is part of Russia's military strategy.

That is, representatives of the Pentagon at a briefing at the Ramstein air base expressed support for Ukraine and drew attention to the crimes of Russia. Russian propaganda took quotes out of context and distorted their content for wishful thinking. The Russians use this tactic systematically. Earlier, with the help of disfigured quotes, they reported that the German edition of Die Welt called on Ukraine to recognize the “loss of Donbas”.

Russian media write about it.Like, the provocation was ordered by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi. It seems that the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine needs to expose Russia as an inhuman aggressor, which, due to failures at the front, hits peaceful targets. For this, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are allegedly beaten at power facilities with “Points U”.

Russia has not provided any evidence to support its claims. On September 11, the Russians launched a missile attack on CHP-5 in Kharkiv, leaving Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk and partially Donetsk regions without electricity. In total, 11 missiles were fired at the facilities of the Ukrainian energy system.

After the beginning of the liberation of the Kharkiv region, Russian propagandists confirmed that it was their troops who had struck the critical infrastructure: “Glad to strike the energy infrastructure of the Kyiv regime because it is important for victory.” Moreover, they called on the Russian military to carry out new strikes, including against the Rivne and Khmelnitskyi nuclear power plants. In their opinion, “electricity is not a right, but a privilege”, which Ukrainians “do not deserve”.

Subsequently, the rhetoric of the pro-Kremlin media and propagandists changed, they accused Ukraine of “self-shelling” and “provocations”. Like, Ukraine will expose Russia as a “terrorist” and will again make false accusations. Among other things, allegedly Ukraine will launch messages that the Russians tortured civilians in the occupied Kharkiv region. Thus, propaganda is trying to justify the crimes committed in the temporarily occupied territories.

This message follows from the publications of pro-Russian bloggers. They say that the need for an offensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine followed from discussions about the supply of weapons to Ukraine in order to demonstrate to the allies that they should give even more weapons, even despite the depletion of their own stocks.

According to bloggers, we can talk about fighters, tanks and long-range ATACMS missiles capable of hitting targets in Russia. For this, according to the authors of the reports, shortly before the counteroffensive, an article was published by Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi and Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskyi, which deals with the possible spread of hostilities to other territories.

However, the supply of weapons to Ukraine began long before the counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, and the results of its use, in particular, could be seen in the Black Sea and the sinking of the Moskva cruiser. Also, the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, of course, is not a demonstration of the capabilities of Ukraine, but, above all, an operation to liberate the territories occupied by the enemy, and it was planned from this point of view. According to its results, we recall that more than 2 thousand square kilometers of Ukrainian territory were freed.

The appearance of such messages is a way for pro-Russian bloggers to somehow explain the defeat of Russia on the battlefield and the loss of initiative in this direction, as well as an attempt to kill the wedge between Ukraine and the allies.

Russian media write about it. Like, the Ukrainian military landed a drone on the territory controlled by the militants and fled Ukraine in order to “spend honestly earned money” for this “agreement”. It’s fake.

As the Center for Counteracting Disinformation writes, the Bayraktar TB2 drone is controlled by a team of three operators, not just one person. It is impossible to control the UAV without the Drone Control Center, which is part of the complex. If the drone lands on enemy territory, the enemy will not be able to use it. The loss of “Bayraktar TB2” would have led to an investigation by military counterintelligence, by the end of which none of the participants in the incident would have been able to leave Ukraine.

Propagandists simply spread fakes to discredit “Bayraktars”: supposedly Ukraine will use them for chemical attacks, or the Ukrainian military refuses to use “Bayraktars”, or supposedly the company that produces bayraktars agreed to cooperate with Russia and so on.

To do this, they create messages on social networks in order to fake donations supposedly to help wounded soldiers.

The fact-checkers of the project “Beyond the News” checked the message in which the user signed as “Our Victory” calls on those who are not indifferent to help his “brother” Vadym Dobrovolskyi. He is allegedly wounded and in a coma after being hit by debris in the head. The fundraising message (€12,000) was published in early August and went viral with 59,000 shares, 3,500 likes and almost 6,000 comments. However, scammers are hiding under the user who posted the message. Fact-checkers also found another, very similar message about “help” to another “wounded” person.

The message uses two archival photographs from 2015, which have nothing to do with the text of the messages. There is also a discrepancy in other reported information. The phone number +380986704972 of the “brothers” of the wounded was previously used to register a personal Facebook account, which is now blocked due to “impersonating another person and using a fictitious name.”

The phone number +380986704972 was used in another help message. Here it is listed as a phone number “for contacting the parents of the wounded soldier Yurii Sternadchuk”. The message was allegedly made on behalf of the father, Volodymyr Sternadchuk, although it was published in April by a user signed as “Glory to Ukraine”. The photo of “Yuri Sternadchuk” is a screenshot from the video in Tik-Tok on the @muzhikam channel. This user creates a video about the everyday life of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The video from which the screenshot was taken was uploaded on April 17, and the Facebook post about the injury of the so-called Yurii Sternadchuk will appear two days later. On the phone in one of the social networks, they found the real name of the author of the channel, but they did not find any connections of this person with Yurii or Volodymyr Sternadchuk.

The reports about the “wounded” soldiers Vadym and Yurii are almost identical, only the date of the “wound”, the photo and the amount of “help” differ. In the first case, 9 thousand euros were collected “for the wounded”, in the second - 12. Fraudsters see what an emotional response the stories about wounded soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine evoke and come up with stories that are similar to the truth for profit.

The fact-checkers of the NotaYenota (The note of the raccoon) project drew attention to the photo and found out that the photo was not from Azov and Olenivka. This is a photo from one of the largest Nazi concentration camps, Buchenwald, taken in 1945. As evidence of the detention of Azov prisoners in Olenivka, it has almost 9,000 shares. Fact checkers say that at first this photo was shared by bots, and then picked up by real users. It was also circulated in many patriotic and anonymous pseudo-patriotic groups.

The Facebook page Ukraine LIVE spread a message about “3 hellish months” of the captivity of the Azov people (although in fact it has been more than three months already). The report compares their detention in Olenivka with the detention in Auschwitz and the Hulah and illustrates it with a number of photographs – Ukrainian soldiers in captivity and a photo allegedly from Auschwitz. Actually photos from Buchenwald and other camps. The photograph of 1945, which has the Olenivka geotag, has been shared more than 8.7 thousand times and the number is growing.

The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that an attempt to attack the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kharkiv direction was allegedly thwarted and the 14th mechanized brigade of the enemy lost more than 50 people.

During the briefing, the adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Serhii Leshchenko said that the information voiced by the Russian departments was untrue.

“Nothing like this happened. We contacted this brigade and we were told that this is complete nonsense and a lie”, said the adviser.

Propaganda channels in social networks disseminate information that “draft notices” are issued to women because “there are no men left in the city.” The head of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Kharkiv region, Volodymyr Timoshko, called it nonsense on the air of the telethon.

Since the beginning of the summer of 2022, Russian propaganda through social networks has been promoting the thesis of agendas for women. In the Mykolaiv region, even forged documents were distributed to argue the lie.

It should be noted that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has developed a bill to reduce the list of women's specialties subject to military registration from October 1. The initiative has already been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada, and now the relevant committee is working on it.

The Ministry explained that now there is no urgent need for the mobilization of women. At the same time, the Armed Forces of Ukraine still need specialists in medicine, radio engineering, and food technology.

Women with minor children under 18 years of age are not subject to conscription due to mobilization. Note that registration is not mobilization.

In wartime, women can be recruited for military service and in the military reserve only under contract and on a voluntary basis. All female employees do so voluntarily and/or under contract.

This thesis is spread by propagandists who deny the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kherson region. These messages say that everything seems to be a lie, since the military personnel are not capable of anything - they are drug addicts.

According to EU vs Disinfo analysts, Ukrainian forces have broken through the first line of defense in unspecified areas of Kherson region and have been trying to take advantage of the gap in Russian offensive lines caused by Ukrainian HIMARS strikes for many weeks.

At the same time, Ukraine has not yet confirmed the dismissal of a single settlement. As we said before, it is too early to guess the results of the counteroffensive , if it is successful or not. Military action of the magnitude of this counter-offensive does not resort and fail in a day or a week.

Previously, propagandists claimed that the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian army failed immediately after it began.

 This thesis is actively spread by the Kremlin propaganda media. Like, an attempt at a counteroffensive undertaken by the Armed Forces of Ukraine failed instantly, and the Ukrainian army is not capable of anything. In such reports, Ukraine is called a helpless puppet of the West, which allegedly prompted the start of a counteroffensive right now. According to analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, the Russian Defense Ministry launched an information operation to present Ukraine's counteroffensive as a decisive failure almost immediately after it was announced - on August 29. Several well-known military bloggers — even those who have been critical of the Kremlin — are pushing the message, according to the Institute. The Institute also reports that there are those who are spreading the message that the Western leaders of Ukraine pushed Ukraine to launch a counter-offensive prematurely and/or too late for “political” reasons. In fact, it is too early to talk about the results of the counteroffensive, if it is successful or not. At the same time, it is beneficial for Russia to say that the Ukrainian offensive is failing in order to create the appearance of its power and invincibility.

Anonymous telegram channels and Russian media write about this with reference to the militant of the so-called LNR, "representative of the people's militia of the LNR" Andriy Marochko. Allegedly, on the territory where hostilities are taking place, wounded Ukrainian servicemen and local residents with pro-Russian views are disappearing somewhere. Marochko says that he allegedly has evidence of the work of "Western transplantologists" who transport organs and Ukraine, and then to the West. It is not true.

Organs removed from the body remain viable for a limited period of time, during which it is impossible to transport them from the war zone in Donbas to the West. Organ retrieval requires a team of specially trained personnel of at least 6-8 surgeons. Transplantation is always targeted, based on a series of compatibility criteria. For this, a preliminary medical examination of both the donor and the recipient is always carried out, which is impossible in war conditions.

Russian media write about this with reference to an article in The Economist. They said, Kyiv was advised to "cool down" in the Kherson direction.

The Economist did publish an article called "Stay cool on Kherson". The authors talk about why the Ukrainian armed forces in the Kherson region should act with caution and explain that the Russians managed to capture Mariupol, Severodonetsk and other cities because they were not afraid to destroy them. Instead, the Ukrainian army is trying to avoid the destruction of Ukrainian cities. Propagandists manipulate the translation of the phrase "stay cool". It can be translated as "cool down", but given the text of the article, it is more about "keeping calm". The authors of the article analyze the advantages and disadvantages of both armies in the context of the battle for the Kherson region. However, Russian propaganda manipulates by emphasizing the advantages of the Russian army, and diverts attention from the fact that the authors of the article believe that the Ukrainian army will have better positions in this battle.

Another fake within the framework of the Russian propaganda narrative about "black transplant specialists in Donbas". This time, anonymous Telegram channels associated with the Russian GRU spread a new fake. Apparently, changes in the legislation, which allows commanders of units to certify the wills of soldiers, were lobbied by "black transplant specialists". A "resident" writes that there will be an annex to all wills, in which it will be indicated that the soldier is leaving the state authorities or science, and it will read "a check for each soldier's body - a million dollars."

This is an outright lie. In Ukraine, it is possible to become an organ donor after death, but in case of the following actions: download the template on the website of the Verkhovna Rada. Fill it in and have it notarized - and hand over the application of consent to the transplant coordinator. Commanders were allowed to certify only wills, not any other documents - so it is even theoretically impossible to become an organ donor right in the trenches. As for the very procedure of harvesting organs during the war, this fake has also been repeatedly refuted: it is a complex procedure that requires several specialists, specific equipment, and is limited in time. So transplant specialists do not go to war zones to find an organ.

Russian media and anonymous telegrams write about this. They say that British instructors are preparing units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for small arms battles in cities, and are not preparing aviation, artillerymen and tankmen. It seems that no one in the West is preparing the Armed Forces of Ukraine for an offensive, because this requires completely different resources and scales. It seems that the British consider preparation for defensive battles necessary, because they plan to “gradually give each part of the Ukrainian land destroyed and at the lowest cost for themselves, but at the maximum cost for Russia”, because then the Russians will need to “restore devastation and beggarism”.

In fact, foreign instructors teach the Ukrainian military not only to shoot small arms, but also to use all types of weapons provided by Western partners. According to Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, today the Ukrainian military is being trained in the UK, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, France and Germany. The main focus is on the training of application specialists:

artillery systems of large caliber; multiple launch rocket systems; means of artillery reconnaissance; air defense means; different types of wheeled and tracked vehicles; demining systems, including underwater; different types of ships and their weapon systems, including anti-ship ones.

The shooting training, which the propagandists write about, is allegedly included in the basic combined arms training course for the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which has recently begun with the support of the UK.

In the West of Ukraine, in recent days, a message has been circulating on social networks calling for congratulations on the birthday of a fallen soldier. Users noticed that the message is distributing a portrait of Sashko Syvyi, who fell at the front in 2014, although his date of birth is different.

The authors of the "Brekhunets" project ("Liar" project) have tracked that messages calling for congratulations to fallen heroes in Facebook communities first collect a lot of comments, and then their content is transformed by replacing text, photos, or adding links to garbage sites.

The Russian media repeatedly manipulates the topic of LGBT military personnel. This time, messages are being spread that there is no one to fight in Ukraine anymore, so gays, lesbians, and transgender people are being recruited. Russian society is characterized by intolerance and homophobia, considering representatives of the LGBT community to be "perverts", people not worthy of respect. LGBT people in Russia are often discriminated against, for which the perpetrators, according to the law, cannot be brought to justice. When talking about LGBT people, propagandists pay attention exclusively to their sexual orientation, erasing the fact that homosexual people can be specialists in various fields just like heterosexuals. In particular, in the military.

LGBT people have been serving in the Ukrainian army for a long time and, in particular, have been defending the borders of Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, in 2014. The Constitution of Ukraine stipulates that "all people are free and equal in their dignity and rights. Human rights and freedoms are inalienable and inviolable". During the draft, the military commissions do not ask about sexual orientation, because people are not selected for the army based on it. On the contrary, the fact that additional attention will be paid to it can be considered discrimination.

In Ukrainian society, as well as in the army, there are still certain problems with bullying or intolerance towards LGBT people. Despite this, Ukrainian LGBT soldiers fulfill their duty to protect the state. Manipulations of Russian propaganda about the fact that in Ukraine "there is no one to serve" is a wish that is passed off as reality.

The fake about Ukrainian "gays in the army" is not new. Earlier, Russian propagandist Olga Skabeyeva voiced on the air of her program that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr ZeZelenskyon the orders of US President Joe Biden, sent "columns of Ukrainian homosexuals" to Donbas.

"Media Detector" previously refuted the myths about the LGBT+ community, which are widespread in the Ukrainian media and society, and also told how LGBT activists oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This was reported by the spokesman of the Odesa Regional Military Administration, Serhii Bratchuk. Fraudsters send letters of appeal in personal messages to managers of many enterprises, private individuals, and the e-mail address of companies and organizations. In the letter, allegedly from Odesa OVA, signed by Maksym Marchenko, they are asked to participate in the humanitarian aid program of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and provide details for the transfer of funds. Fraudsters also write the amount to be transferred by the entrepreneur, allegedly for the purchase of military ammunition and equipment. The letter also states that "the actions have been coordinated with the President of Ukraine and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine." This letter is fake.

This is reported by the Russian media with reference to the representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense Igor Konashenkov. He said that the unit suffered significant personal losses and combat effectiveness in general. Allegedly, they tried to fill the unit with local residents, but no volunteers were found. It is not true.

As the Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center writes, the special unit "Kraken" has indeed announced the recruitment of recruits for the assault company. According to Kraken Chief of Staff Kostiantyn Nemichev, in the first two days, 800 questionnaires were received from those wishing to join the special unit. The selection will take place in several stages, including an interview and a "young fighter course". After that, the instructors will make the final decision.