Russian propagandists claimed that Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol allegedly surrendered. "Azov" fighters explained that the white flag near the Azovstal plant is used to evacuate citizens , that the defenders surrendered into captivity, the Telegram reported.

"Attention!" information is spreading from some Internet sources that the defenders of Mariupol came out to the Russian military with a white flag. In reality, white flags are used by both groups to implement the plan to evacuate civilians. This time, both groups used such flags to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal plant. We would like to note that this procedure has been carried out for the fourth time," Azov fighters said. As reported, on May 6, during the ceasefire on the territory of the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works, the Russian invaders used an anti-tank missile system and drove up a vehicle moving towards civilians. As a result of the shelling, one fighter was killed and six were wounded.

On May 6, the operation to evacuate people from the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works continued - 50 people managed to be evacuated. Today, May 7, the evacuation continues. Russia's aggression has caused one of the greatest humanitarian disasters in Mariupol. The invaders are bombing unarmed residents and blocking humanitarian aid. The Azov Regiment, National Guard, Ukrainian Marines, and motorized riflemen continue to defend Mariupol.

On May 5, Russian propaganda media, including RIA Novosti, RT, Vesti.ru, gazeta.ru, iz.ru, Sputnik Latvia, and others, as well as telegram channels, spread a new fake about Azov fighters: propagandists write that allegedly Ukrainian fighters demand to exchange Azovstal civilians hiding in the Maripuol for humanitarian aid - 15 people for one ton. No proof of this assertion was provided.

At the same time, Azov leaders repeatedly appealed to the international community and politicians to help evacuate civilians from Azovstal. Today, May 6, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak said that during about another stage of the evacuation with the participation of the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross, 500 Mariupol residents were able to be removed from the territory of the plant.

Propagandists conduct a systematic disinformation campaign against Mariupol defenders and regularly spread false reports about Azov.

The Russian media, followed by the state-run Belarusian media, disseminated a statement by Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, that the Russian military allegedly "observes the silence regime," while "Ukrainian nationalists" allegedly "shell humanitarian corridors. In fact, there have been numerous recent instances of Russian troops shelling convoys of civilians, in particular, a convoy of volunteer vehicles that on May 2 evacuated people from the village of Russkaya Lozovaya in the northern suburbs of Kharkivwas hit by mortar fire. In addition, Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko said, on May 3 that Russia had blocked the evacuation of 2,000 Mariupol residents from seized Berdyansk for two weeks. Oleksandr Starukh, head of the Zaporizhzhya regional military administration, also said that Russian kafirs blocked the evacuation of people from other places in Zaporizhzhya Region upon the arrival of convoys of civilians from the Azovstal plant.

Anonymous telegram channels controlled by Russian special services spread a manipulative thesis that the AFU General Staff allegedly decided to collect civilians in Severodonetsk in the basement of the Azot plant, where the AFU is located. In particular, "Legitimny" spreads this, comparing it to the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. This manipulation is part of the narrative that the Ukrainian military "uses civilians as human shields. Similar manipulations were spread about Kramatorsk, where the train station, from which civilians were being evacuated, was hit by the Russian military; as well as about foreigners and Mariupol. Regarding Azovstal, by the way, the Russian media spread fakes, assuring that there were no civilians at all at the plant in Mariupol. In general, Russian propaganda and official agencies then use these reports to justify strikes on civilian objects and civilian casualties. In fact, the head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration, Serhii Haidai, had previously warned, that Russia would try to encircle Severodonetsk. At that time, he said that the civilians had better evacuate the city.

Russian media spread a fake that soldiers of the 93rd "Kholodny Yar" Brigade refused to continue serving and fighting the Russian military. Russian media spread a fake that soldiers of the 93rd "Kholodny Yar" Brigade refused to continue to fight the Russian military." The news was spread with reference to a telegram channel called Nolodniy Yar, which masquerades as the 93rd Brigade's alleged communications channel. In reality, the 93rd Brigade "Kholodny Yar" does not have a telegram channel - it was not created due to the Russian origin of the social network. At the same time, it is possible to follow the brigade's news on their Facebook page. Representatives of the 93rd Brigade noted, that the telegram channel "Kholodny Yar" was created by Russians in order to try to demoralize Brigade servicemen and their families and to conduct information and psychological operations against the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In particular, this channel often publishes documents found on the battlefield, gaps to the territory of the unit or patches with the names of our fighters, and pass them off as dead.

"This is done in order to sow panic among relatives and friends. Also, the enemy lays out lists of soldiers, as if they were in captivity. They post written complaints of soldiers who refuse to go to the front lines. Of course, in conditions of intense fighting in the many thousands of troops are the following. However, the Russians are trying to pass off individual isolated cases as a mass phenomenon, which is certainly false," said the 93rd Brigade.

Kremlin propagandists are spreading information that on Saturday, April 30, the Russian side reported the "evacuation" of 46 people from Mariupol.

"The Russian Defense Ministry reports that two groups of civilians, a total of 46 people, left the residential buildings adjacent to Azovstal on April 30 and were provided with lodging and food," RIA Novosti reported.

Later, Kremlin media outlets and channels telegraphed the evacuation of two groups of people, and one of them wanted to leave for Russia. After that, Russian media began to circulate videos of one of the evacuees complaining that the Ukrainian military, which she called "militants," "were not letting people out of Azovstal. Another allegedly evacuated man says that mines flew "only from the direction of the Azovstal plant," and was wounded as a result.

The pro-Kremlin channel of TV host Vladimir Solovyov distributed an exclusive video of the Azovstal evacuation on the morning of May 1, where a Red Cross representative says that there were 21 people in the party, among them several children and one woman with a bandaged arm. According to their information, the people were supposed to spend the night in a Russian filtration camp for refugees in the village of Bezimennoye and go to Zaporizhia.

Captain Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, confirmed that it was possible to evacuate civilians from Azovstal. A total of 20 people were evacuated, including women and children. There is no confirmation of the rest of the evacuated people either by the Azov Regiment or the Red Cross.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Xinhua news agency that 1.02 million people have been evacuated from Ukraine to Russia since February 24, including more than 120,000 third-country nationals, including more than 300 Chinese citizens.

He said the hotline of the Russian Federation's Interagency Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response had received a request for assistance to evacuate 2.8 million people to Russia, 16,000 of whom were foreign nationals and personnel of international UN and OSCE missions.

His statement was disseminated by a number of foreign media outlets, including Reuters. In fact, Lavrov isn't telling the truth.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 5.3 million refugees left Ukraine after Russia invaded. Most of them went to Poland - more than 2.9 million. More than 801,000 people left for Romania, more than 647,000 for Russia, 507,000 for Hungary, more than 439,000 for Moldova, more than 363,000 for Slovakia and more than 24,000 for Belarus.

Ukraine's permanent representative to the UN, Serhii Kyslytsia, said that more than 500,000 Ukrainians, of whom 121,000 were children, were forcibly removed to Russia from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. He noted that about 20,000 Ukrainians are being held in filtration camps on the Mangush - Nikolskoye - Yalta line and about 5,000-7,000 in Bezimenne in the Donetsk region.

Liudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, said that after the camps, Ukrainians are taken by bus to Taganrog, Russia, and from there they are transported by train to Omsk and Tomsk regions and the Perm region of Russia. There are cases of Ukrainians being taken to Sakhalin.

"Unfortunately, we have no lists of these people. There are only individual testimonies of relatives or people themselves who called our hotline and told us that they were forcibly removed and they are there in some kindergarten in the city of Taganrog, sleeping on the floor... Well all these horrors of their movements as long as they have communication," Denisova said, responding to a question from Radio Liberty about the availability of lists of Ukrainians taken out to Russia.

According to her, some time after crossing the border with Russia, communication with the taken out is broken, their phone is taken away from them and "they are given a view that they cannot leave the territory of the Russian Federation home for two years." The Russian side does not allow or shoot up humanitarian corridors from the blockaded towns, including Mariupol. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, thousands of people - military and civilians - remain blockaded in Mariupol. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk added that the Russians do not want to go to any negotiations on the Azovstal enterprise, where there are more than a thousand women, children and more than 500 wounded. "Now it is impossible to go there, much less create a humanitarian corridor: Russia is bombing, rocketing, shelling the approaches," she said.

According to the Armed Forces of Ukraine the Navy, taking advantage of the emotional state of relatives and loved ones of military personnel, the attackers call from hidden numbers and offer to facilitate the release of their loved ones from captivity for a monetary reward. ""Thus, the attackers also want to know the personal data of Ukrainian defenders. Representatives of military authorities or state institutions do not collect funds! The issues of the release of prisoners of war are in the exclusive competence of the state authorities only," the message reads. "

Throughout April 19, the Russian propaganda media and pro-Russian telegram channels were actively spreading the video of "that terrible explosion at Azovstal." In particular, it appeared in the "Trukha-Ukraine" telegram channel. The short video does indeed show something exploding, but it is not an explosion at the Azovstal plant, but explosions at ammunition depots in Balakleya, which occurred in 2017. The fake video was brought to the attention of Toronto Television. Previously, the Russian occupants struck Azovstal with super-heavy air bombs. There were at least 1,000 civilians in the underground shelters of the steel mill. According to Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov regiment, the Mariupol plant was bombed and destroyed almost completely, Ukrainian fighters are pulling people out from under the rubble. As a reminder, Russian TV channels, including the Russian Ministry of Defense channel, are spreading information that there are allegedly no civilians hiding in the shelters of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. They try to convince us that the video with the civilians was not filmed at the plant, but "in other shelters. This is not the first time that Russia has assured that there are no civilians in the facilities it hits. In this way the Russian Ministry of Defense seeks to justify the crimes of its military on the territory of Ukraine. However, this always turns out to be untrue and peaceful people are killed by Russian strikes.

Russian propaganda media have been spreading information about this for several days in a row. Reports say that the Russian army in Mariupol "freed Turkish hostages from Ukrainian captivity" in a mosque in Mariupol. it is reported that the "special operation to rescue Turkish citizens" was carried out at the personal request of Turkish President Erdogan, who asked Russian authorities "to release people held by militants in the building of the mosque.

According to StopFake, the mosque in question is that of Sultan Suleyman Magnificent and his wife Roksolana in Mariupol, which in March served as a shelter for Turkish citizens and Muslims of other nationalities from Russian shelling.

Fact checkers note that the head of the Suleyman Magnificent Mosque Association, Ismail Hacioğlu, denied Russian statements about "rescuing Turkish citizens from Ukrainian captivity." According to him, there were no Turkish citizens in the Mariupol mosque and there was no one to "rescue" there. "Hacioğlu also said that a total of 24 Turkish citizens with their families are in the city, all of whom have been held in temporarily Russian-occupied areas of Mariupol for more than four weeks," writes StopFake.

Russian TV channels, including channels of the Russian Ministry of Defense, are spreading information that civilians are allegedly not hiding in the shelters of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol. They try to convince us that the video with the civilians was filmed not at the plant, but "in other shelters. To this thesis, the propagandists add only some screenshots from one video, without recording. At the same time, they do not mention or add many other videos of hiding in the factory. In fact, Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov Regiment, and Mykhailo Vershynin, head of the Donetsk Region Patrol Police, stated that hundreds of civilians were at the Azovstal plant. Moreover, the Center to Counter Disinformation pointed out that the day before, Russian propagandists themselves wrote that Azov plant seemed to be "holding civilians of all ages, including children, hostage. This is a manipulation that Russia often uses to justify many cases of violations of laws and customs of war by the Russian military (more than 7,000 criminal cases have been opened) - but it is also proof that Russia knows there are civilians at the plant when it shells Azovstal.

Ukraine's government emergency response team CERT-UA has warned that malefactors are sending emails to Ukrainians and Ukrainian government organizations with the subject line "Urgent! Azovstal Unblocking Urgent! Unblocking Azovstal." Sheets have an attachment in the form of an XLS document "Military on Azovstal.xls", which contains a macro. When you open the document and activate the macro, the computer will be affected by the Cobalt Strike Beacon malware.

After pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk was detained, anonymous telegram channels controlled by the Russian special services launched a series of manipulative messages designed to undermine Ukrainians' trust in the authorities. For the most part, these messages and theories are built on assumptions, such as "Medvedchuk is wearing a new uniform, which means that his things are not suitable for photographing. In fact, the new uniforms can't prove that Medvedchuk's things are "unsuitable for photographing. Moreover, there is no evidence that he was dressed up on purpose. Earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that Medvedchuk tried to disguise himself as a Ukrainian military man by wearing a uniform and crossing the Ukrainian border. It is noteworthy that the telegram channels avoid affirmative sentences and build messages on assumptions: "Zelenskyy knew about the start time of the attack on February 24, so the SBU could calmly take Medvedchuk to a safe place."

In addition, the telegram channels use the prefix "gossip" for their manipulations, after which one can write anything and retract his words if necessary. For example, "weaved in that the Russians knew that Medvedchuk was in the SBU, and negotiations on his exchange were unsuccessful. If Russia really did not plan to exchange Putin's cousin for Ukrainian defenders, it would mean that the Kremlin is not interested in Medvedchuk's future fate. If so, Russia, which keeps trying to discredit the Ukrainian authorities, would benefit from publicly stating that Medvedchuk is being held by Ukrainian law enforcers, as opposed to fleeing Ukraine's official statements. Medvedchuk's wife, host Oksana Marchenko, who recorded an April 13 address to Vladimir Zelensky, may also have previously claimed that her husband had disappeared. She, like the pro-Russian TV channels, says that Medvedchuk is allegedly "illegally detained by the SBU." Recall that Medvedchuk was announced suspicions and the court selected preventive measures in the criminal proceedings on oil and gas extraction in the Black Sea and on aiding the activities of a terrorist organization through the supply of coal from the occupied territories of Donbass. He should be under house arrest, but escaped from his estate, thereby violating the obligations under the preventive measure.

This manipulative thesis was spread by former MP Oleh Tsarev, who fled to Russia and pro-Russian telegram channels. In fact, back in February 2021, it was Victor Medvedchuk and his wife Oksana Marchenko who were sanctioned for financing terrorism. Medvedchuk is not a hostage - he was announced suspicions and the court selected preventive measures in criminal proceedings for oil and gas extraction in the Black Sea and for facilitating the activities of a terrorist organization through the supply of coal from the occupied territories of Donbass. He should be under house arrest, but Medvedchuk fled his estate at the beginning of Russia's large-scale aggression against Ukraine. In addition, Tsaryov tries to present the proposal to exchange Medvedchuk for Ukrainian defenders captured by Russia as "proof" that "there is a civil war going on in Ukraine. This is refuted even by the Russian government, which, although it still calls the war in Ukraine a "special operation," confirms the presence of Russian troops on Ukrainian territory.

Russian propagandists called fake the statements of the Ukrainian side about the blocking and seizure of humanitarian aid for Melitopol by the invaders, attaching photos of white trucks with a red cross allegedly located at Azovstal in Mariupol. StopFake writes that the photos are fake, because according to Mayor Ivan Fedorov, the humanitarian aid was sent by other vehicles.

The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service and numerous Russian media have spread false information that allegedly Ukraine has informed Great Britain that it does not intend to comply with the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war. the speaker of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Oleh Nikolenko, denied this fake:

"Russian intelligence does not stop spreading disinformation. Earlier it created fakes about allegedly thousands of Ukrainians seeking asylum in Russia, about inhumane treatment of Russian prisoners of war, about "workers" of Azovstal who "ask" to join the ranks of the Russian invading army. The SVR's claim about the Geneva Convention is another such fake," Nikolenko wrote on Facebook.

The purpose of the fake is to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of international humanitarian structures, says Nikolenko and reminds that Russia itself, unlike Ukraine, violates international law.

The Russian media spread a staged video in which an Azovstal employee in Mariupol allegedly talks about the "tyrants" from Azov, to whom he is going to take revenge for being left without a home. He also passionately thanks Vladimir Putin and intends to join the Russian army or police. According to the Center for Strategic Communications at the ICMP, Azovstal's personnel department denied that a man with this name and surname has never worked at the company. The Mariupol City Council called the man in the video an "actor".

Earlier, the Hrati newspaper reported that Mariupol residents forcibly deported to Russia upon arrival to the occupied territories are sent to filtration camps. There, they are photographed, fingerprinted, and their phone data is copied by FSB officers. The Russian publication Mediazone published proof that the video of the girl recounting Azov's crimes against civilians in Mariupol was recorded by an FSB officer and distributed to Russian media with the requirement not to specify the source of the video. The Russian media published it for their materials. The girl in the video also thanked Putin.

Such messages circulated en masse in social networks during the air raid in the evening of March 31. People spread information like explosions and shelling. However, there was no shelling, said the head of the Regional Military Administration (OVA) of Lviv region Maxim Kozitsky.

"As it turned out, in one of the localities of the region workers of a gas extraction tower produced a controlled release of adjacent gases. During the release, a sound similar to an explosion was heard. There was also a partial fire. These events coincided with the announcement of an air alert," the Center for Strategic Communications reports with reference to the head of the Lviv OVA."

According to the Patrol Police of Ukraine, such information is disseminated by Russian propaganda media. However, this is not true. "The occupiers do not control the city; they just arranged a photo session near the district prosecutor's office building in the Left Bank district. This area is separated from the central part of the city by a river and the industrial zone of the Azovstal plant. Policemen, fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard, the Territorial Defense give a worthy rebuff to the invaders and continue to defend the city heroically," the statement reads.