This information was disseminated by Russian TV channels. Like, the students told reporters that it was hard for them to study when the teachers spoke to them in Ukrainian. Now teachers explain in class that Ukrainian language is inconvenient and how Ukrainians themselves get confused with it.

As an example, the TV report shows one of the schools in the temporarily occupied Melitopol, which has been under the control of Russian troops since February 25. Since then, the inhabitants of Melitopol, who stay in the city, have been persecuted by the Russians. For a blue and yellow ribbon or the Ukrainian language, Russian invaders can shoot them, and if, while checking the phone on the street, they find Ukrainian content in instant messengers or somewhere else, they punish people with a fine or imprisonment.

Schools in the Zaporizhzhia region continue to work online. In schools that began to work offline in the occupied territory of the region, children are taught according to Russian textbooks, where history is rewritten according to the KGB manuals, many teachers are brought from Russia, as the locals refused to cooperate with the occupiers. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that all schools in Zaporizhzhia have switched to Russian standards; rather, operating schools have been forced to switch to Russian standards.

On the other hand, to date, about 80% of the Zaporizhzhia region has been occupied by Russians. The city of Zaporizhzhia has never been under occupation, so no one has taught schoolchildren of Zaporizhzhia city and is not teaching now according to Russian standards.

Such information was disseminated by pro-Russian users of social networks and Kremlin propaganda media. Reports said that an accident occurred during the dismantling of a monument to Russian poet Oleksandr Pushkin in Zhytomyr, Ukraine.

Like, one of the activists who advocated the removal of the monument, the bust of the monument fell on his head and the man died. Propagandists added vivid quotations to their texts. For example, they claimed that the bust "smashed the head of the leader of Russophobes like an egg". However, this is fake. Analysts of the Myth Detector project drew attention to the case.

In fact, the information about the injury and death of a person during the dismantling of the bust of Pushkin is untrue. From the photo and video materials released by various media, it is clear that no one was injured during the dismantling of the monument. Although the monument itself in Zhytomyr was indeed dismantled on November 11. The video of the incident was published by the press service of the Zhytomyr City Council on Facebook.

The video shows how local utilities remove the bronze bust and erase the name of the Russian writer from the pedestal. The video shows that the bust, transferred to the truck, is not damaged. And the person who participated in the dismantling descends from the stairs and pushes the stepladder to the side. The footage shows that the man was not hurt.

The language issue is one of the key reasons for the manipulation of Russian propaganda. More often, messages in the Ukrainian language are promoted with a negative emotional connotation. Like, the Ukrainian language is “funny”, “village”, “artificially created”, etc.

The Center for Counteracting Disinformation has published a number of the most common fakes in the Ukrainian language. Particularly, Russian propaganda often writes that the language allegedly does not matter, that Russian and Ukrainian are the most related languages. Allegedly, speech does not affect national and cultural identity.

In fact, linguistic oppression has been one of the main instruments of Russia's struggle against Ukraine for centuries. The Ukrainian language is an original, natural Slavic language. It has never been artificial, moreover, when forming the literary Ukrainian language, they tried in every possible way to avoid artificial constructions. Dialects of the Ukrainian language have never been dialects of Russian.

According to a survey in February 2022, 56% of Ukrainians named the Ukrainian language of everyday communication, and almost 68% named Ukrainian as their mother tongue. Russian aggression against Ukraine has contributed to the fact that more and more Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine are abandoning Russian and switching to communication in Ukrainian.

This thesis was spread by Russian President Volodymyr Putin, after which it was replicated by Russian propaganda media. Putin is convinced that Mariupol is an ancient Russian city. He also claims that the city was founded by Peter I and created his first military flotilla there. However, it is not so. In fact, in Russian historiography, Mariupol as a city in the Russian Empire was founded in 1778, already under Catherine II. Then the city was called Pavlovsk. However, this was preceded by the existence on this territory of the Kalmius settlement - the territory of the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks - with the settlement of Domakha with the Kalmius fortress as the center. The fact-checkers of The Insider project write about this. In 1778-1779, the Russian authorities evicted the Christian population from there to the Crimea and settled Russians there.

Anonymous pro-Russian telegram channels write about this. The message is confirmed by the alleged decision to dismantle the monument to Catherine II. Reports claim that the decision was made on the basis of a "fictitious" vote. Like, the Office of the President gave a clear instruction to the mayor of Odesa, Trukhanov, to demolish the monument, so that the latter is allegedly doing everything possible for this.

In fact, the monument is called the monument to the "Founders of Odesa", and not Catherine herself. However, it is the figure of Catherine whose stone statue is the central figure of the monument that Russian propaganda manipulates the most. The Russian myth about Catherine II as the “founder of Odesa” is spread by Volodymyr Putin among other things.

There is no decision on dismantling yet. On the website of the President of Ukraine, several petitions have been registered regarding the future fate of this monument. Some of them got the required 25,000 votes. According to the current legislation, Volodymyr Zelenskyi submitted a petition to the Odesa City Council with a request to consider it in accordance with its competence.

According to the order of the Odesa Mayor No. 404 dated September 20, 2022, the townspeople had the opportunity to express their opinion on this issue for a month. There were seven options to choose from. About 8 thousand inhabitants of Odesa took part in the voting. About 1800 more votes were blocked, most likely due to problems with identification. The voting results were transferred to the Office for the Protection of Cultural Heritage Objects of the Odesa city council for further development and preparation of a draft decision of the city council.

Telegram channels are circulating reports that supposedly Twitter has begun to use special marks not only for Russian, but also for Ukrainian state media. Thus, it is hinted that the Ukrainian state media are just as propaganda-oriented as the Russian ones. This is manipulation. In August 2020, Twitter, indeed in order to counter Russian disinformation and propaganda, began tagging and downsizing accounts controlled by the Russian authorities. In 2021, the social network expanded the list of countries and accounts that it restricts and designates. It also included Belarusian state media.

Now, according to the company's rules, tags appear in accounts from China, France, Russia, Great Britain, USA, Belarus, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates. Thus, they designate accounts: government agencies and organizations; state media, the editorial policy and content of which is influenced by the state; persons (journalists, editors) associated with the specified media. At the same time, Twitter notes that such designations are not used in state-owned media that have an independent editorial policy, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US.

Russian media and pro-Russian social media accounts are circulating videos with the Euronews logo and a similar style of English subtitles. The story says that supposedly the auction house Bolland & Marotz is holding an auction where participants will be able to purchase Dostoievskyi's letters, Chaikovskyi's handwritten notes, a series of Vrubel's sketches and other exhibits. Moreover, after the sale, all these exhibits will allegedly be destroyed, because Russia has discredited itself in the war with Ukraine. So the destruction of the Russian cultural heritage is a logical consequence. It is not true.

According to the Georgian fact-checkers of the MythDetector project, the story spread on behalf of Euronews is fictitious. The video is modified with computer software, the media did not prepare such a story. Auction house Bolland & Marotz also denied the organization of such an auction. The company also said that the idea of ​​such an event is contrary to internal policy.

Russian media are quoting Volodymyr Putin and calling Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine a "civil war." According to Russian "experts", Russia's attack on Ukraine is not a foreign intervention, but a "civil battle between two parts of the Russian people".

This message has been promoted since 2014. Thus, earlier they tried to hide the presence of Russian troops on the east side of Ukraine. Now propagandists continue to deny the aggressive policy of Russia against the Ukrainian people. Propagandists use the tactics of substitution of concepts and call the occupation of Ukrainian territories the theses of “reunification of Crimea with Russia”, “civil war in Donbas”. To replace the concept of war, the "special military operation" phrase is used.

There is no “brotherly” and “single Russian people”, this is a Russian myth. According to StopFake, after the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine became the only state that approved its independence by popular vote. The All-Ukrainian referendum on the independence of Ukraine was held on December 1, 1991. The Ukrainian people confirmed their desire to live in a free state - 90.32% of the referendum participants voted for the independence of Ukraine. The turnout in the referendum was 84.18% of the population of Ukraine. After the All-Ukrainian referendum, the worldwide process of recognizing Ukraine as an independent state began - in particular, Russia recognized the independence of Ukraine on December 5, 1991.

By showing aggression towards Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, Russia continues to violate international law and a number of international agreements in the field of security, in particular, fundamental treaties guaranteeing the sovereign equality and territorial integrity of states, as well as the rules of law governing the basic principles of warfare.

Some of these stories are published under the hashtag "Russian Whisper," which is used for the stories of the residents of Kyiv, which they allegedly tell propagandists. Propagandists published the story of Olya, who allegedly lives in Kyiv without electricity and writes to Russian propagandists that "not everyone here is abnormal," that she is "very much waiting for the Russians" and cannot talk about it because otherwise, she will not live to " of your victory." The fake checkers of the NotaYenota project drew attention to how the Russian letter "ы" is written in the message - the Ukrainian soft sign and the letter "I"- this writing indicates the fakeness of the message. The Russian letter "Э" was also used in the text. Another of the posts under such a hashtag promotes "historical scraps" about a girl whose passport was written that she is Ukrainian, although she has a Russian surname. The post also talks about "Ukrainization in the 20s and 30s", which was allegedly carried out by force, and it was in the USSR that Ukrainians were created. This message is related to the thesis from the article and the speeches of the Russian president. This girl's friend wrote in her passport that she is "Russian," and now she allegedly fasts with Ukrainian symbols. It is how Ukrainian propaganda supposedly "washes the brain."

With the help of so-called "eyewitness accounts," propagandists promote messages about "Ukrainian Nazism" and "discrimination against Russian speakers" and create the illusion that the Russian army is expected in Ukraine "as liberating heroes."

Russian actor Ivan Okhlobystin tried to motivate Russians at a "holiday" concert on the occasion of the illegal "accession" of temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia. For this purpose, he suggested reviving the "originally Russian" battle cry "hayda." As it turned out, the cry is not Russian; its etymology dates back to the times of Kyivan Rus. As the fact-checkers of the "Brekhunets" project write, such a word doesn't exist in any "canonical" Russian dictionary. Experts explain that "hoyda" is an exclamation used as a predicate in the meaning of "hoydáty" (swinging). It is the meaning of this word in the dictionary of the Ukrainian language. Also, "swing" was a characteristic of a thin, tall girl in Bukovyna.

Modern Russia has no direct relation to this exclamation. It is an example of another "borrowing" by Russians of someone else's and passing it off as their own. Earlier, propagandists wrote that Ukraine didn't have "historical rights" to the "Northern Black Sea Region" and that the residents of Zaporizhzhia were allegedly "declared" Ukrainians without their knowledge, "in fact," they "have always been Russians."

With such a message, pro-Russian Telegram channels are distributing videos of people, allegedly, trying to get into a shelter during an alarm, but they are not allowed to go. The video is accompanied by comments that "repositories for the chosen ones" have appeared, and Ukrainians, instead of helping in times of need, are "pushing each other under bullets." The posts also say that "there is a mess in the country," and officials only "record videos as if everything is fine."

In fact, the video shows how a group of people forcefully breaks into the premises shouting, "we are in the shelter." However, it becomes clear from the words of the institution's employees that it is a school shelter, and there are children. The girl who posted the video claims that she "knows the law"; therefore, she and other people are "obliged" to be allowed to shelter during the air raid alert.

Following regulatory requirements and recommendations, outsiders may not use the school shelter. The school shelter must be organized so that children can stay safely and comfortably during an air raid, even for a long time. The area of ​​the school shelter, water and food supplies, medicines, ventilation system, and other vital things are regulated by regulations. Therefore, there is no allowance for outsiders to go into the school shelter, so the institution's employees acted by the requirements and took care of the children's safety first of all.

Such news is spread by the pro-Kremlin propaganda media, as well as by anonymous telegram channels. Reports say that Ukrainian children did not learn Russian despite their great desire. Allegedly, the Ukrainian authorities discriminate against the Russian language at the state level. However, this is not true.

According to StopFake fact-checkers, in the Kherson region and in general on the territory of Ukraine, the study of the Russian language was not prohibited. According to Ukrainian legislation, at the request of representatives of national minorities, it is possible to organize a separate class for teaching in the desired language but Ukrainian as the state language should be a priority. In the Kherson region it was not only possible to study the Russian language as a subject, but there were also schools where studies were generally held in Russian.

In fact, according to the law "On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language" the language of the educational process is Ukrainian, but no one forbade learning Russian.

According to the Center for Combating Disinformation, pro-Russian telegram channels spread information about holding a large-scale "holiday concert" on the occasion of the completion of the "people's will" in the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions and their reunification with Russia. The concert is scheduled for September 30th.

However, in order to create a picture of “enthusiastic” spectators who will publicly “rejoice” at the occupation, the Russians will use the “administrative resource” - the lists of spectators are pre-approved, and attendance at the “celebration” is mandatory. Also, according to the results of the "celebration", men will be granted a respite from mobilization.

Thus, the Kremlin propaganda is trying to impose on the world community the illusion of popular approval of the occupation of the sovereign territories of Ukraine and to legitimize it. In a similar way, Russian propaganda tried to convince that in Kupiansk they rejoiced at the occupation and celebrated the Day of the Russian flag, while temporarily occupied Mariupol allegedly celebrated the Day of the Metallurgist.

In social networks, an alleged video from the Vilnius metro is being distributed, where posters in support of Ukraine were installed, scornfully illustrating the Russian army. The video also allegedly shows discriminatory inscriptions against Russians. It is not true.

There is no subway in Vilnius. In 2018, the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania passed a law allowing the construction of the metro. However, the President of Lithuania, Dalia Hrybauskaite, vetoed this law at that time. As the fact checker VoxCheck investigated, most likely the Hong Kong subway is on the video. To create a fake, a clip from the Mexican band Montez De Durango was used. Photos distributed on social networks are edited through special programs.

Russian propaganda uses fake videos and photos to promote the narrative of Russophobia in Western countries. Earlier, propagandists wrote that because of Russophobia in Latvia, it was forbidden to sing “Katiusha” at family feasts.

Like, they were simply “handed Ukrainian passports”, so now they only want to return “to their roots”.

This message is spread by the Russian media in the context of holding illegal referendums in the occupied territories and the narrative about primordially Russian territories.

According to the fact-checkers of The Insider project, in 2001 almost 1 million 927 thousand inhabitants lived in the Zaporizhzhia region, of which 70.1% were Ukrainians and 24.7% were Russians. Ukrainian was named as their native language by 73.6% of the respondents, and Russian - only 24.6%.

This is not the first time Russian propaganda has manipulated ethno-national issues. Previously, they said that Ukraine does not have "historical rights" to the "Northern Black Sea" or that the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson region have the right to self-determination under the UN Charter. Thus, they are trying to justify the invasion of Ukraine

Anonymous telegram channels and Russian media write about this. Allegedly, the Investigative Committee of Russia will open criminal proceedings on the arrest of teachers in the Kharkov region. The fake got into the Ukrainian information space because of the pro-Russian media and bloggers. They allegedly referred to a comment by Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk that the detainees would be tried under Article 483 of the Criminal Code (violation of the customs and laws of war). Like, the punishment for them provides for up to 12 years in prison and they are not subject to exchange, because they are not prisoners of war. Some telegram channels also hinted that not all teachers would live to see the trial. It is not true.

As journalist Iryna Romaliiska reported with reference to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Ukrainian police did not detain Russian teachers in the de-occupied territories of the Kharkiv region. Information about the detention was not confirmed in the office of the President of Ukraine. Subsequently, the Russian authorities denied the information about the detention of Russian teachers in Ukraine.

Most likely, this news was deliberately spread by pro-Russian resources in order to demonstrate the “ruthlessness” of the Ukrainian authorities, and subsequently its “absurdity”. This fake also echoes the Russian propaganda narrative about “Ukrainian Nazis.” Previously, fakes were spread that schoolchildren in the temporarily occupied part of the Kharkiv region were choosing Russian as the language of the studies process.

Russian media and pro-Russian resources write about this. Allegedly, there is a classical Ukrainian language, very close to the Russian language and which every Russian understands. Like, it's just a version of the Russian language. The modern Ukrainian language is allegedly the work of political technologists. As if Russian words are replaced by a large number of Polish and English words. And this “artificial, totalitarian and terrorist” modern Ukrainian language is taught to schoolchildren. That is why, according to the Russians, it is necessary to completely eliminate this “artificially created language”, since it originates from the “terrorist methods” of Ukrainian nationalists.

Ukrainian is a real language that has been different from Russian for many centuries. It is more similar to other Slavic languages ​​than to Russian.

They tried to destroy the Ukrainian language many times, and forcibly russify Ukrainians. Targeted bans and oppression of the Ukrainian language with the aim of its destruction and assimilation in Ukraine are called linguocide.

With such a hidden meaning, the first autumn lessons "Talks about important things" by Volodymyr Putin and "Historical memory as the road to the future" by Oleksandr Lukashenko were held. Allegedly, these measures should concern Russia and Belarus, respectively, but they also talked about Ukraine there.

Volodymyr Putin said that allegedly schoolchildren in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions consider the Crimean bridge a fabrication. Also, children do not know that "Ukraine and Russia were once one country - the Soviet Union." Like, they weren't taught this at school. Thus, Putin once again demonstrated Russian chauvinism based on manipulation and distortion of reality.

In fact, the automobile part of the bridge across the Kerch Strait was opened on May 15, 2018, its railway part - on December 25, 2019 for passenger transport and on June 30, 2020 for cargo. Russia occupied Crimea and part of the territory of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014. Therefore, the question of the “quality” of education in the occupied territories should be asked precisely to the occupying “authorities”, and not to the Ukrainian one.

Putin also once spoke about Russia's modern mission - "to stop this war", "to protect both the people and Russia itself", because on the territory of today's Ukraine "they began to create an anti-Russian enclave." In fact, Putin may well end the war he himself started. To do this, he should give an order and withdraw troops from the territory of Ukraine. He transfers responsibility for the start of the war and the crimes committed to Ukraine and to the West.

Oleksandr Lukashenko told Belarusian schoolchildren that the alleged events in Bucha were an artificially created picture. They say that in Belarus they “calculated” the numbers of cars and established the identities of those who brought “corpses in plastic bags” for “provocations”. Lukashenka also recalled an old fake that supposedly now “grain and black soil” are being exported from Ukraine to “rich Europe”. As the fact-checkers of The Insider write, the last time this fake appeared in the information space was in April, on a site of parody news.

In the temporarily Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, the Russian authorities are distributing Russian educational materials in schools. In particular, according to the Institute for the Study of War, pro-Russian authorities from Sevastopol arrived in Starobelsk, Luhansk region, to hand over backpacks and official state symbols of the Russian Federation to local schools. The Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Serhii Aksionov, also urged teachers in Crimea to strengthen the patriotic program in Crimean schools, in particular, to inform children about the decision of Russian President Volodymyr Putin to conduct a “special military operation” in Ukraine. In addition, the first lesson, which will be held in schools in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions, is focused on the lesson outline, which is taken from Putin's article "The Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians", his speeches on the recognition of the independence of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, as well as the start of a "special military operation". According to the Institute's analysts, in these speeches, Putin rejected the legitimacy of Ukrainian identity, saying that it "is a product of the Soviet era ... and historical Russia was developed on this land." Institute experts call such actions of the Russian authorities an attempt to erase Ukrainian identity in the territories occupied by Russia. Remember that in the temporarily occupied Melitopol, the occupation authorities are trying to resume the work of schools and, according to the mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, they want to open 4 schools, for which teachers will be brought from distant regions of Russia. As for pupils, due to the frantic "deficit" of schoolchildren, the occupiers are frightening parents that they will deprive them of parental rights.

Russian propaganda convinces of this. But this is not the case at all, the Center for Strategic Communications notes.

In fact, Ukrainians are:

going to rallies en masse,

cooperating with the Armed Forces,

fighting the invaders on their own,

This is stated in a letter allegedly signed by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, Marcin Przydacz. It is not true.

The letter from the Polish Foreign Ministry is a fake response to a fake letter from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. The "letter of response" speaks of a positive decision to rename a street in Warsaw in honor of Stepan Bandera, which houses the Russian embassy. In addition, the "letter" refers to the ways of future promotion of Bandera among the Polish population. According to the Center for Countering Disinformation, a bot account on the social network Facebook, which contains almost no messages of other messages, was likely the primary source.

The information that Serhiy Shnurov visited the city of Irmino in the Luhansk Region was spread by the Russian propaganda media with reference to the Russian actor Georgy Bolonyev. Later, a photo in which Shnurov is allegedly in Luhansk Oblast also appeared on the pages of Ukrainian online media. However, this is not true.

The photo turned out to be a fake. Shnurov accused Russian propagandists of having photoshopped his old photo into a picture with Prigozhin and Bolognev. Pro-government Russian media also denied the fake, referring to the words of Shnurov's press secretary Serhii Guguchkin. Like, the singer is currently in Turkey and taking part in a corporate event. Later, Bolonev published other attempts of the same photo on the Russian social network Vkontakte and wrote that Shnurov is being confused with the Russian actor Sergei Garusov. And this is done not only by readers of social networks, but also by residents of occupied Stakhanov who saw Harusov in person.

"Media Detector'' checked the photo. It is impossible to establish the author and the location of the shooting, as metadata about who created the image is erased in social networks. Reverse search of the original image on the Internet through search engines and the TinEye extension is not convincing due to the clutter of image reposts. However, analyzing the image in the InVid application shows traces of editing. Especially, the right part of the image, where Shnurov is supposed to be. This shows that Shnurov is not really in the photo from Irmina. Harusov is only three centimeters shorter than Shnurov, this difference can be muffled by a hat, higher shoes or lifting on the toes. So, they could really be "confused".

The use of photos of celebrities who were not actually in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories is a novelty for Russian propagandists. Previously, they published news about stars who really visited the occupied territories for, apparently, ideological reasons.

This information is spread by pro-Kremlin sites, and for illustration, they used photos of the Iversky Convent destroyed during the fighting for the Donetsk airport in 2014.

The Iversky Convent belonged to the so-called Moscow Patriarchate and suffered as a result of the battles for the Donetsk airport in 2014-2015. Videos of Convent’s damage, which the Russian propaganda is using today to illustrate new lies, appeared as early as 2015.

Instead, the Russian occupiers are purposefully destroying Ukrainian cultural heritage, including churches and temples. According to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, the Russians damaged 101 objects of valuable historical buildings and destroyed or damaged 145 religious buildings. More details.

This information was spread by the Russian media and social networks. It is not true.

The VoxCheck team verified this information and reports that according to the band's concert program in Tallinn, any Russian song was played at the concert in Estonia on July 20, 2022. This is also confirmed by videos from the concert posted by fans on YouTube. The band has openly expressed its support for Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Concerts planned for 2022 in Russia have been canceled.

On social networks were spread the video of a concert in Mariupol, at which the residents allegedly celebrated en masse and sang along to "a white swan on the pond..." of the soloist of the Russian group "Lisopoval." Russian media and pro-Russian telegram channels distributed photos and videos of the "very massive" participation of citizens in the concert from the "press service" of the so-called DNR. Then these videos were shared on Facebook. It is manipulation.

Indeed, July 17 is celebrated in Ukraine as the Day of Metallurgical and Mining Workers. A similar holiday is also celebrated in Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. As NotaYenota writes, the occupiers decided to hold several events for Metallurgist's Day, including a concert with the participation of a special guest, Serhiy Kuprik. In the comments to the video of the show, Ukrainian users write, "who are our guys fighting for," "look, we felt sorry for them," etc. It is precisely the effect the occupiers sought — to convince the Ukrainians of the "treason" of the Mariupol's residents.

More than 400,000 people used to live in Mariupol. Probably, among them, some have pro-Russian views. However, at least 22,000 Mariupol residents died due to the hostilities. The occupiers forcibly removed thousands of people through the so-called "filtration camps" to Russia. Many citizens left for safer places earlier. According to the adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, Petro Andryushchenko, 50-100 people still leave the city every day. Therefore, the information of the occupiers that the city's population is now 220,000 is invalid. There are no more than a thousand people in the "holiday" video, but there is no evidence that these are Mariupol residents, not specially brought actors. From another perspective, the picture of the crowd of the event is significantly different. The event is sparsely populated compared to videos from previous years. Probably some of the people were collected by distributing food packages because there are problems with food in the city. The propagandists also attracted Russian bloggers, who, in their comments, talk about the support of the residents of Mariupol by the residents of Russian cities and talk about the "peaceful" life in Mariupol.