The Institute of Mass Information investigated how one of the largest telegram channels of the occupied Donetsk region spreads Russian disinformation in the occupied territories and how it changed the main message topics five months after the start of the full-scale invasion.

According to the research, propagandists most often refer to the Armed Forces of Ukraine as "VFU" (Armed Forces of Ukraine; 632 mentions), "Nazis" (601), "militants" (495), "Ukras" (160), "terrorists" (134), "neo-Nazis" (131), "Ukrainian Nazis" (117). Propagandists most often associate the Ukrainian army with Nazism in their word-making experiments, IMI writes.

IMI researchers identified five groups of messages:

More details in the study.

Russian propagandists continue to talk about Russia's invincibility in the war, including because of its economic power. The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security writes that Russia is a mediocre player in the international market. In particular, more than 75% of Russian exports are raw materials, more than 53% are energy carriers, and only 8% are high-tech products. A raw economy is a feature of a colony, not an empire, the Center summarizes.

 “The Meduza” reports that it has received from its sources two manuals developed in the Kremlin for Russian propagandists and public figures. According to them, the basis of "Russian civilization" was the Orthodox faith, which teaches compassion, love of neighbor and, patience with others. "Special operation" should be compared with the Christening of Russ, and Putin with Alexander Nevsky. The manual’ authors write that the Christening of Russ, as well as the war in Ukraine, lay the "national foundations" as well as "the foundations of the Russia development for the next century." Allegedly, this is due to the "unification of society around the army and the strategic course of the president", and Russia's mission is "to protect the oppressed". One of the goals of the special operation is the "war against the godless," who "use women and children as human shields." They are characterized as "rapists, robbers and, murderers." The Kremlin proposes to use such theses to describe the Ukrainian military. He said, "there is no morality" for them, because most of them are "open Satanists and followers of philanthropic cults." The war was started by "the collective West, which is confident in its rationalism". Propagandists are recommended to use the alleged words of Alexander Nevsky that there is strength in the truth. However, Russian soldiers are convinced of their rightness, because they are continuing the work of their grandfathers - destroying Nazism. As a matter of fact, the theses about love for neighbor and tolerance proposed by the manuals are nullified by the atrocities of Russian soldiers in the occupied territories. Russia accuses Ukrainians and the whole world of Nazism, ignoring the fact that the Russians are the closest to Nazism today. More details. 

Russian propagandists spread such messages by using, in particular, a quote from the American economist Jeffrey Sachs, who has pro-Russian views.

According to the Center for Combating Disinformation, the Kremlin media took the words of former US military officer Murphy Donovan out of context and spread false reports that the population of Odesa will come under Russian control on its own. Donovan's article generally talks about the importance of Odesa for Ukraine.

 Facebook users told about the mailing. The reports say that allegedly Ukrainian politicians short-sightedly hand over national interests to Poland, and Poles "do not consider us as people, they are Polonizing and will soon "take away" the western regions". They are also trying to convince Ukrainians that "Ukrainian children will be stolen and turned into Poles"; the "absorption of Ukrainians by the Polish nation" is taking place; "our children will not remain Ukrainian in Polish schools"; it is already allegedly about a "Ukrainian-Polish federation or confederation, and in Poland, Ukrainians are increasingly not welcome." It is also alleged that ordinary Poles harass volunteers who collect money for Ukrainian refugees and want to return the western regions of Ukraine under their control, telling at their official events that Lviv is a Polish city." Bandera and the Volyn tragedy are also mentioned in the reports.

In the posts, topics and messages that affect the reader's emotional state are deliberately used. Messages are sent from Russian numbers. Subscribers with the numbers +7 (950) 869-0734 and +7 (908) 186-7552 are served by the operator T2 Mobile in the Rostov region of Russia. In this way, the Russians are once again trying to destroy friendly relations between Ukrainians and Poles and discredit Poland's assistance to Ukraine during the war. 

Russian media write about this regarding the report of the NATO Defense College. They said that NATO analysts "confirmed" that Russia "uses only a small part of its resources and does not use its main trump cards" in the war against Ukraine. This is manipulation.

On July 27, the NATO Defense College published an analytical report on Russian tactics of waging war against Ukraine. However, there is not a single mention in the report that Russia is not fighting at full strength in Ukraine. Instead, it says that Russia has limited use of certain military tactics against Ukraine, but this is explained by the intention to preserve part of the forces for attacking NATO countries. The main point is that Russia did not properly prepare for the invasion of Ukraine and made a significant miscalculation regarding Ukraine and its Armed Forces. Experts write that during the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army showed a strong material weakening of the troops and significant discipline violations. Now, Russia is deploying older weapons more often to strike the territory of Ukraine, which may indicate both the gradual depletion of the stock of high-precision weapons and the planning of a future war against NATO. The report also states that as of July-August 2022, Russia has probably reached the limit of conducting major offensive operations.

Analysts conclude that despite Russia's current apparent inability to defeat Ukrainian forces, the Kremlin still has an opportunity to correct its mistakes, strengthen its army and attack NATO countries in the future. Therefore, the Alliance needs to actively strengthen its defense, because "Russian strategic ambitions are not limited only to Ukraine."

Russian users of social networks share a video in which the Kinzhal hypersonic missile allegedly hits a military base at a depth of 136 meters, and the event supposedly happened in May. However, it is a fake video. As VoxCheck writes, the widespread video appeared on the network in February of this year. The video`s author is a visual effects artist known on social networks as InsanePatient2. The video has the title: "What if Russia Started Nuclear War?" ("What if Russia started a nuclear war?"). The description of the video states: "What if Russia/Putin Started Nuclear War with Ukraine and the rest of the world?" ("What if Russia/Putin started a nuclear war with Ukraine and the rest of the world?")." In the artist's YouTube and TikTok accounts, there are other works created using computer graphics. On May 9, 2022, Russia launched three "Kinzhal" missiles over Odesa, as noted by OK "Pivden", then destroyed 5 buildings. Moreover, on March 19, 2022, in the village of Delyatyn, Ivano-Frankivsk region. As a result of the strike, the ammunition depot was destroyed," the fact-checkers write.

Russian propagandists systematically use manipulative and fake information to justify the "necessity" of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Crimean collaborator Olga Koviditi reported the need to "expand the geography of the special operation". The same opinion was recently expressed by another collaborator, Denys Pushylin. He said, "it's time to liberate Kyiv, Poltava, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Kharkiv, Lutsk, and Zaporizhzhia." Ramzan Kadyrov has been talking about taking Kyiv "shortly" for the fifth month. Tactics of systematic repetition of a certain message are used by propagandists to subconsciously consolidate this information in the target audience.

Russian propagandists report it. It is about the alleged Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission of the USA) developed a project called "Decolonization of Russia: Moral and Strategic Imperative," which envisages the division of Russia into seventeen parts. It is not true.

As the StopFake fact-checkers write on the US Helsinki Commission website, you can find an announcement of an event called "Decolonization of Russia: Moral and Strategic Imperative." But it has nothing to do with the distribution of Russia and the map distributed by the Russian media. They discussed the fundamental foundations of Russia's aggressive and brutal policy during the discussion. As a result, they worked out ideas to help restrain Russia and establish long-term peace on the Eurasian continent. It was about Russian imperialism and the decolonization of Russia in the sense of ending relations in which the metropolis establishes political control over another country and uses its economic and natural potential for its purposes. That is the termination of Russia's control over other states.

The map was created in 2021 by a user under the pseudonym "Kaiyr" and is freely available on the Internet.

It was stated by the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sergey Lavrov. The Russians and Ukrainians allegedly will continue to live together.

According to the Constitution, Ukraine is a sovereign, independent, democratic, and legal state. The only source of power in Ukraine is the people. Using their rights, Ukrainians elected Volodymyr Zelensky as president. Therefore, the popular results will refute the thesis about the "anti-people's regime" in Ukraine. As a foreign state, Russia should not interfere in Ukraine's internal processes at all. Lavrov's words "the historical unity of the Ukrainians and Russians" are one of the cliches of Russian propaganda, built on the history and communist ideology rewritten by the Soviet authorities.

According to the sociological survey, only 2% of Ukrainians have a good attitude towards Russia, while 92% have a bad attitude. Therefore, Lavrov's statement about the further "common life" of Ukrainians and Russians does not correspond to reality.