Such information is disseminated by pro-Russian information resources. They say that sanction restrictions do not prevent sales of cartridge products in the United States and do not have a significant impact on the work of the enterprise. This is manipulation. The posts cite the company's explanations for the 2021 income statement. In fact, the sanctions against the Tula plant have nothing to do with the war in Ukraine, since they were imposed as a US reaction to the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Oleksii Navalnyi with the Novichok nerve agent. The sanctions limit the conclusion of new contracts for the supply of weapons and ammunition from Russia. However, the sanctions did not affect previously concluded contracts, and therefore it was possible to continue their implementation. Over the period from September 2021 to March 2022, the volume of cartridge imports from Russia to the United States did not really decrease. However, in April 2022, the US government made a legislative decision to stop the usual trade relations with Russia. From April 2022, the duty on the import of cartridges from Russia to the United States is 30-45%. In April-June, the import of Russian cartridges decreased by 88% compared to the previous quarter. In June, the US President set a fixed duty rate for Russian products at 35%. Given that almost half of the products of the Tula Cartridge Plant are systematically exported, the company is now suffering from the loss of one of its main sales markets. In July, out of 1,397 workers, the plant transferred 530 workers to downtime with the payment of two-thirds of their wages, and another 337 workers quit. Thus, Russia is trying to promote disinformation messages that sanctions are not hurting the Russian economy and the West is still secretly trading with Russia despite the sanctions. More details.

 Such information appeared in the pro-Kremlin media. Messages began to spread after Volodymyr Putin in his "Valdai speech" said that Ukraine was creating a "dirty bomb" and Russia even knew "roughly where this is being done". Propagandists claim that Kyiv, on the basis of the projectile of the Tochka-U missile system, made a dummy of the Iskander missile for a provocation with a dirty bomb over the exclusion zone of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Like, the layout was made by Pivdenmash specialists, and the main cassette part of the dummy is pushed with radioactive material, and then shot down in the Chernobyl area in order to shock the world and accuse Russia of using nuclear weapons. However, this is not true. According to The Insider's fact-checkers, the so-called mock-up shown by the Russian media is fake. “Despite the similar outlines, Tochka-U and Iskander missiles have different sizes. The diameter of the Iskander is 920 mm, and the Tochka-U is 650 mm, almost one and a half times smaller. It is impossible to create a model of the Iskander based on Tochka-U, except perhaps a smaller copy, which is unlikely to convince international experts. And the scenario in which a rocket allegedly launched by Russian troops with a radioactive filling explodes over the Chornobyl exclusion zone, that is, a practically deserted territory where the harm done to Ukraine will be minimal, does not look very plausible,” the fact checkers write. This is not the first time Russia has claimed that Ukraine is going to use a dirty nuclear bomb to blame Russia for it. Read more about this in the text of Hala Skliarevska.

Russian and some Ukrainian media reported this regarding the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, interview for Politico.

Russia allegedly understood that the Ukrainian authorities consider their country a "testing ground" for Western weapons, so they warned the world about the danger of using a "dirty bomb." In fact, in an interview, Reznikov talked about the prospects of supplying Ukraine with new weapons from allied countries. And also about the fact that the use of Western weapons by the Ukrainian Armed Forces helps push Russian troops out of Ukraine.

The minister called on the partners to test their weapons on the battlefield against the Russian occupiers and ensure the weapons' effectiveness in combat. "We have a combat test site in Ukraine during this war. I think all countries see how we use these systems. You are aware that we have eight different 155 mm artillery systems in use on the battlefield. So it's like a competition between systems," Reznikov said.

The Russian media took this quote out of context and spread a fake in the spirit of "turning Ukraine into a Western training ground" and a "colony of the collective West." Ukraine allegedly lost its independence while receiving military aid from international partners. Russia, having initiated a full-scale war against Ukraine, wants to destroy our country as a state and uses Ukrainian territory as a training ground for prohibited Russian weapons. More details.

This news was written by the Finnish publication Yle concerning an interview with the senior commissioner of the National Bureau of Investigation (Keskusrikospoliisi), Christer Algren.

The journalist claimed that the official was talking about the availability of data in the criminal police of Finland regarding the probability of weapons intended for the Ukrainian military getting to criminal groups in this country.

The material states that this firearm is already in Finland and was allegedly found in other Scandinavian countries. The Ministry of Internal Affairs believes that there is a reason to believe that the information presented in the article "was a little made up by the journalist and didn't coincide with the words of the police representative who was interviewed."

Moreover, representatives of law enforcement agencies from other countries confirmed the lack of information about a similar channel for illegally transferring weapons from Ukraine. The Finnish commissioner, in this interview, says that the investigation is ongoing and doesn't cite any evidence, only speculation.

However, based on his words, the publication spreads the Russian narrative that the weapons provided by international partners to the Ukrainian military end up with criminals in Europe.

Propagandists regularly throw such theses into social media to sow distrust in the Ukrainian army at the international level and reduce or even stop the support of Western partners.

This information was spread by the Russian Kremlin mass media and anonymous pro-Russian Telegram channels. The Pentagon allegedly told Kyiv that HIMARS is no longer available for Ukraine." Propagandists draw such conclusions based on an article in The New Yorker. However, it isn't true. As StopFake writes, in fact, the US Ministry of Defense has officially announced that it will deliver 18 HIMARS MLRS to Ukraine as part of the following package. The New Yorker's source in the Pentagon assured Ukraine would receive "more weapons of greater complexity and on a larger scale."

The Russian media write that the Ukrainians are allegedly powerless against Russian high-precision weapons, so we invent "victories." The reports say that allegedly at the weapons exhibition in Poltava, the tour guide said that the X-55 cruise missile can be neutralized with the help of a shout. Then it will seem to explode in the air. "If a cruise missile flew towards you, you didn't scream well," Russian media write. However, it is manipulation. The Russian media reports that the weapons exhibition is a project of Ukrainian artists. In fact, there were no real weapons in the exhibits.

As Suspilne writes, the "Decontamination" project aims to allow visitors to overcome their fear and artists to film the consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 3D models of the destroyed equipment were created to implement this idea, which can be seen using virtual reality glasses.

Among other things, models of sugar tanks and a model of a nine-story building in Borodyanka were presented at the exhibition. One of the exhibits was a real-sized model of the Kh-55 missile. According to the idea of ​​the authors, its flight can be leveled with the help of a strong sound. A person shouts at this rocket, and it stops working and explodes at best. It was this explanation that propagandists used to create "news."

In this way, propagandists try to present Ukrainians as inferior, hide the true effectiveness of the Ukrainian air defense system, and make fun of rockets hitting the civilian population.

The Russian media write about this concerning the press secretary of the President of Russia, Dmytro Peskov. The aid allegedly won't change the goals of the so-called "special operation" and its final result but will only prolong the "conflict" and make it more painful for Ukrainians.

Propagandists have been spreading this message periodically since the beginning of the great war after reports of new weapons supplies to Ukraine. In this way, they are trying to discredit the supply of air defense systems for the protection of the civilian population of Ukraine, which the Western partners reported after the massive missile attacks on October 10-11. As the Center for Combating Disinformation writes, the supply of air defense systems will nullify one of Russia's biggest trump cards — missile attacks.

Previously propagandists wrote that the Ukrainian military refuses to use "Bayraktary" to discredit Western weapons. Supposedly, Ukraine will no longer receive American HIMARS MLRS and their missiles. France is complicit in "crimes" against the civilian population, as Ukraine fires at Donbas from French self-propelled guns, "Caesar," etc.

Such information is spread by the Russian mass media and users on social networks.

At dawn on October 6, Russian troops launched a missile attack on the territory of the Shepetiv district of the Khmelnytskyi region. As the head of the regional military administration, Serhiy Gamalii, reported, one rocket fell next to an infrastructure object, and the other fell on a cemetery. There were no casualties or injuries as a result of the missile strike. Partially damaged residential buildings and farm buildings.

Every time after launching missiles over Ukraine, the Russians "report" that they hit the target and allegedly destroyed yet another factory or warehouse with Western weapons, or premises where mercenaries were located. Russian propaganda needs such messages to "wash its hands" of shelling civilian objects and to claim its pretended success.

Military correspondent Andriy Tsaplienko discovered a staged video, which the Russians filmed as a video report on the pretended "victory".

He shared footage from a reconnaissance drone that showed strange containers in the trench.

Later, it turned out that the Russians had placed containers in the trench in the Kherson region, which turned out to be warheads of marine anti-landing anchor mines.

After that, a Russian tank allegedly destroys a warehouse of Ukrainian ammunition with one shot. The Russian occupiers don`t know how else to raise their fighting spirit, except for staged videos about their successes.

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.

The Russian media once again distorted in their own way the content of an article in the American edition of The American Conservative. They write that, according to an article titled “Winners and Losers in the Ukraine War” by founding editor Patrick J. Buchanan, America is responsible for the escalation in Eastern Europe when a number of countries were accepted into NATO, as well as for the confrontation in Ukraine. StopFake writes about this manipulation.

In the original article, there is not a word about the recognition of the fallacy of American assistance to Ukraine. In his material, Buchanan reflects on who can be considered the winner and who will be the loser in the war in Ukraine. He further writes that a new Cold War has been established between the US and Russia and raises the question of whether it is in the interests of the US and how successful foreign policy was then if the Cold War began again.

The Russian media once again used quotes from the text of a foreign publication in order to fit them to their key messages. The text does not say that the United States regrets the support provided to Ukraine, and the only quote given by the propagandists is inaccurate.

This is not the first time that the Russian media have distorted the content of what was written in order to demonstrate the decline in support for Ukraine by Western partners and the United States in particular. Thus, they personify the propaganda cliché about the lack of unity of the Western countries in relation to Ukraine and the war that Russia unleashed.

Russian propagandists decided not to deny the activity and victories of the Ukrainian army in several directions at once, as they could do before. This time they came up with an excuse and circulated it in anonymous telegram channels. It seems that US Secretary of State Blinken, during a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyi in Kyiv, made him understand that "it will not work to divide the EU countries into new tranches until there is at least some success (albeit temporary)".

At the same time, the Russians are not worried that these new tranches will be used against them. They promote the thesis that foreign weapons end up on the black market, and it is easier to write them off during a counteroffensive. And they reassure themselves that, they say, a counteroffensive is no longer beneficial for Ukraine, because the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered heavy losses in the Kharkiv direction.

Thus, they are trying to downplay the success of the Ukrainian military, to attribute the idea of ​​a counteroffensive to the United States or the EU, remembering that the battles were commanded by foreign mercenaries.

This is a typical Russian tactic - instead of voluntarily liberating Ukrainian cities and villages, they are dying on foreign soil, for no one knows why, and they blame the United States and the West for this.

Such news is spreading through the Kremlin telegram channels. Reports say that a tank set of Italian Leopard 2A4 was overturned in the Kherson direction. However, this is not true. Italy and Ukraine do not have such tanks in service.

According to the StopFake fact checkers, the Italian army has got other tanks, namely the Ariete. As of September 2022, Ukraine has not received Leopard tanks from its partners. At the same time, Germany did not make a decision to start production of these tanks for Ukraine.

The propagandists constantly changed their thesis in relation to the supplying country, since the non-existent “Italian Leopard 2A4” and then the “Italian Leopard 2A6” on the battlefield near Kherson were replaced by the “Spanish Leopard 2A4”. This is also a lie because Spain has not used them for a long time as tanks are in a terrible position.

By spreading this news and constantly changing it, propagandists seek to justify the losses and defeats that the enemy army faced in the context of the Ukrainian army's counteroffensive in the south.

As the Center for Counteracting Disinformation writes, Russian propagandists circulated almost identical theses in content, expressed by former CIA officer Andrew Bustamante and Russian State Duma deputy from the temporarily occupied Sevastopol Dmytriy Belik. Bustamante said it's critical for Americans to protest their latest weapons in combat, and in Ukraine, that doesn't mean risking their own military. Bustamante also believes that Putin is winning the "conflict" despite the sanctions. Belik believes that in this way the United States is trying to test the combat effectiveness of the Russian army.

The specialists of the Center believe that the dissemination of these messages is the result of the recognition by the Ukrainian military of the coordination of possible targets in the use of American MLRS HIMARS and their combat effectiveness.

Russia has been systematically spreading the message that “Ukraine is being used as a weapons testing ground” to discredit Western military aid. Propagandists recently said that Germany is using Ukraine to test weapons. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz allegedly let slip about this.

Russian media are spreading such news with reference to US Department of Defense spokesman Colin Kohl. It is not true.

The Russians again distorted the words of the American official, in fact, Colin Cole did not say this. According to StopFake, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Colin Kohl noted during a briefing that the United States will continue to help Ukraine resist Russia's unjustified invasion. He also said that the assistance will take into account the actual needs of the Ukrainian army in the battlefield. Answering a question about future deliveries of HIMARS to Ukraine, Kol noted that the Ukrainians are doing a good job with the number of systems that the Americans and other countries have already provided. Now, according to the official, the priority is to provide the Ukrainians with enough ammunition to keep them fighting. There are no any questions about termination of deliveries of HIMARS systems to Ukraine. Allies of Ukraine only note that their number is now assessed as sufficient, and ammunition for them is a priority.

The Ministry of Defense of Russia disseminates such information on social networks. The head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional council, Mykola Lukashuk, assures: "Of course, the church never had and does not have any RSZV (reactive salvo fire systems). The Russians once again prove that the Russian Federation is a terrorist country that always spreads lies to justify its crimes. We will never understand it. But you don't have to understand - you have to win and rebuild the state."

This is reported by anonymous Telegram channels. Allegedly, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz accidentally said that Ukraine is being used as a testing ground for new weapons. It is not true.

In an interview with the Canadian edition of The Globe and Mail, Olaf Scholz said that Ukraine was given some weapons systems that the Bundeswehr does not have. However, Scholz did not call the transferred weapons experimental and did not talk about the fact that they are being tested in Ukraine. He also said that German specialists teach Ukrainians how to use this equipment correctly.

This is stated in the film Arming Ukraine on the American TV channel CBS News. It was announced by the pro-Kremlin media, and in Ukraine, it was published by the website "Strana". The film says that the US loses control over military weapons after crossing the border, that only 30-40% of supplies from the West reach the front, and the rest goes to the "black market". That is why a system of weapons supervision should be created.

Rustem Klupov, a veteran of military intelligence, a participant in the First Chechen War, and a Hero of Russia, said this on a pro-Kremlin show on the Telegram channel.

According to him, the Russian army destroyed a lot of ammunition for this system, and the missiles’ deliveries are carried out by Ukrainian public transport, in particular in buses and trams.

Recently, the USA announced new military aid for Ukraine - the Armed Forces of Ukraine will receive four HIMARS rocket launchers and other military equipment.

These modern rocket launcher systems are actively used by the Armed Forces, and this brings military victories. HIMARS proved so effective that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered commanders to make their destruction a priority. Thus, Russian propagandists regularly launch fakes about the alleged HIMARS destruction. Earlier, they reported the fake destruction of two, then another, then six more HIMARS installations, and also gave burnt straw for the destroyed missiles for these installations.

 Anonymous Telegram channels write about this with reference to The Guardian article. Allegedly, the Western publication "without mincing words" describes "all the weakness of the remnants of the Ukrainian army." Like, the Western military is trying to teach Ukrainians at least something. This is manipulation.

Ed Rahm's article for The Guardian makes no mention of "anti-Russia". Messages that the West wanted to create an "anti-Russia" out of Ukraine are spread exclusively by Russian propagandists. The article is devoted to the story of how a "Mozart Group", volunteers, former foreign soldiers, conducted training for the Ukrainian military in the use of Western weapons. Ed Rahm is indeed talking about separate problems regarding financial support and insufficient training of Ukrainians. However, the article talks about this not as the "weakness of the remnants of the army", but in the context of the fact that people from various professions joined the army and stood up to defend their country. The author notes that only every tenth of the current defenders was a soldier before this war, but due to Russian aggression, they had no other choice but and took up arms. Speaking to the journalist, foreign instructors say that Ukrainian troops lack experience, but they make up for it with enthusiasm and determination. They respect the Ukrainian military, who, despite the circumstances, study, train, and do not lose their sense of humor. Russians systematically use out-of-context and distorted quotes from Western media to spread manipulative messages. 

This is reported by Russian propagandists and anonymous Telegram channels. Allegedly, the "military formations" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are located on the roof of the Odesa Theater of Musical Comedy, and heavy weapons and armored vehicles are located on the territory of the University. It is not true.

Both institutions denied the reports of Russian propagandists. Administration of Odesa Academic Theater of Musical Comedy named after Vodianyi called the message "an insolent and cynical fake of the occupiers". The Rector of Odesa State Environmental University, Serhiy Stepanenko, invited all interested parties to a field trip to the training ground, where training meteorological stations are located for the practical training of meteorology students.

Russian media are manipulating about the transfer of T-72 "third generation" tanks to Ukraine, Insider writes. They said that they are transferring scrapped equipment from the 70s to Ukraine.

The T-72 tank was developed in the USSR in the 1970s, but it has undergone at least 14 modifications that are still relevant today. Modified T-72s are still in service in more than 40 countries of the world (among them Serbia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Finland, Uzbekistan, Syria, and others).

North Macedonia announced plans to dispose of its 31 T-72 tanks but linked it not to their unsuitability, but the transition to NATO standards. Ammunition for the main armament of the T-72 — 125 mm guns — is not produced in NATO countries. 

Pro-Kremlin media and social networks spread information, citing the representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov, that the military and space forces destroyed "more than a hundred rockets to the HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system" in Lyubimovka, Dnipropetrovsk region. Allegedly, as a result of the attack, the Armed Forces of Ukraine lost about 120 soldiers, and that the Russians killed "foreign mercenaries and technical specialists". "However, the strike was carried out on the agricultural enterprise hangars, in which at that time, more than 800 tons of straw were stored (according to Konashenkov, it would be possible to make from it about 100 missiles for HIMARS). In addition, one child (obviously a foreign mercenary) was injured," a fake exposed journalist Roman Tsymbalyuk.

The Russian media spread the statement of the head of the National Defense Management Center, Colonel-General Mykhailo Mizintsev, about the stronghold of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at school No. 23 (Yavornytskyi Avenue) in Dnipro. However, "artillery and armored vehicles were placed near the educational institution." It is not true.

The address of school No. 23 in the city of Dnipro is Dmytro Yavornytskyi Avenue, 14. The Dnipropetrovsk National Historical Museum is located at Dmytro Yavornytskyi Avenue, 16. Its complex includes the "Battle for the Dnipro" diorama, and near its building, there is an open-air military equipment display, The Insider reports.

So, there are artillery and armored vehicles. However, all this was placed not by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as General Mizyntsev claims, but by the Soviet Army at the initiative of Air Marshal Volodymyr Sudets. The order to place the equipment was signed by the Minister of Defense of the USSR Andriy Grechko, and it happened in 1975.

The Russian media wrote about this with reference to The New York Times article (NYT). Allegedly, skepticism is growing in the West regarding Russia's "attrition tactics" they have initiated.

Russian propagandists selectively quote the original article, and also add to the retelling non-existent quotes, writes VoxCheck. The original article cited by Russian media ran under the headline "Ukraine tries to prove it can win, recalling recent strikes." "Rejecting skepticism that Western weapons will allow them to turn the tide against Russia, the Ukrainians point to successful attacks using new long-range missile systems," the introduction reads.

Its author, Andrew Kramer, was formerly a correspondent of the NYT's Moscow and now he is a correspondent of the Kyiv bureau. His publications for the NYT already contained manipulations and messages consistent with Russian propaganda.

At the beginning of the article, Cramer does note that "support for the West has softened", but he doesn’t provide any specific examples that would indicate this. He does not give examples of those who expressed "skepticism that Ukraine will be able to win a war of attrition." More details.