Such information is spreading on social networks. The rockets allegedly flew from Belarus. This information was denied by the head of the Volyn regional military administration, Yuriy Pogulayko.

Today, October 31, everything was calm in the region during the morning air alert. With such reports, Russian propagandists are trying to frighten the population.

Because today the Russians launched missile strikes almost all over Ukraine, it is essential not to panic, remain calm, and be in a shelter in case of an alarm.

Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels distributed a fragment of the video with this caption. In fact, Russian propagandists dispersed their crimes online. Ex-commander of the "Azov" regiment Maksym Zhorin published in a telegram a video from the mass grave, which he took from the phone of the Russian occupier.

"Look carefully at the executioners. It's clear to everyone that the Russian military carried out this execution of ordinary civilians in the occupied city. The full video is now with the investigation. Russian soldiers will be identified. There will be payback!" he wrote. Russian propagandists took from Zhorin's telegram those fragments of the video. It doesn't show who is killing people, but Russian propaganda spread it, as allegedly "Azovians" killed people in Kupyansk.

Shifting responsibility for one's war crimes is a typical tactic of Russian propaganda. After mass graves with hundreds of tortured people were discovered in Bucha, Izyum, and Lyman, liberated from the Russians, propagandists launch fakes as if it isn't their fault every time.

The Russians have recently used all sorts of methods to "prove" that the Ukrainian army during the counterattack is "clearing" areas of "civilians who lived under occupation." Thus, they also want to cause distrust in the Ukrainian military, particularly the "Azovs," who have long turned into neo-Nazi horror films in Russian fakes. They want to sow fear among people before the liberation of the occupied territory.

After the Russian occupiers announced an attack by drones on their ships in Crimea on October 29, messages on this topic appeared in anonymous propaganda channels.

NATO forces were allegedly engaged in a drone attack in Sevastopol Bay. It was allegedly their military training under cover of Ukrainian strikes. Once again, propagandists repeat the message that Ukraine has become a testing ground for Western and American weapons.

Allegedly, revenge is expected for this, and the Ukrainians will receive a response in the form of strikes on the energy system. Whenever the occupiers report an attack on the occupied sites, they resort to intimidation tactics against the civilian population. Propagandists spread similar messages on October 8 after the attack on the Crimean bridge.

The window of opportunity has allegedly opened for Russia to start a "full-scale war." However, Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine has been ongoing since February 24, 2022.

The Russians terrorize millions of Ukrainians daily, destroy entire cities and villages, and attack the energy system. In this way, they want to sow panic among Ukrainians to start protests and force the Ukrainian authorities to negotiate with Russia, which means meeting the Kremlin's requirements and capitulating.

The shelling of the power system and residential buildings only angers Ukrainians more, and more Ukrainians say there can be no negotiations with a terrorist country.

This message is again spread by the Russian Kremlin media, denying the tragedy that Ukrainians experienced in 1932-33. This time, the "news" began to be promoted against the message that the Russian occupiers dismantled a monument to the victims of the Holodomor in occupied Mariupol. It was dismantled because, according to "historical sources," famine in the regions of the South of Russia and then the Soviet Union was allegedly a recurring phenomenon. Therefore, due to the famine in 1932-33, the tremendous losses were not in Ukraine but other regions of the Ukrainian SSR. As analysts of the Myth Detector project write, the propagandists also claimed that the "authorities" of the city are not fighting the historical monument but are removing "a symbol of misinformation created at the state level." In fact, misinformation about the Holodomor has been circulating for decades. Natural phenomena didn't cause the famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. The tragedy was the result of Joseph Stalin's purposeful policy. Falsifying the number of victims during the famine and connecting the famine with natural phenomena were initially part of the propaganda of the Soviet Union. Russian propaganda has now adopted this method, which seeks to hide the crimes of the Stalin regime and deny the genocide.

Such a message is spread, in particular, in the Belgian segment of social networks. Pro-Russian users share photos and videos of a lightly injured woman who took a selfie while ambulance workers treated her. If you were the victim of a missile strike, you don't seem to care about selfies or videos. So, according to propagandists, this behavior of people shows that they are actors and not really victims.

Belgian fact-checkers drew attention to the spread of the message. They write that the photos and video fragments shared on social networks are, in fact, taken out of context in such a way as to leave room for ambiguous conclusions.

Propagandists used the behavior of one of the least traumatized victims to promote their message while ignoring more serious human injuries and deaths. Other victims of the Russian attack can be seen in the photo's background, including people injured by glass fragments from the office center next to which the rocket landed. Numerous photographs and videos taken by Ukrainian and foreign journalists in Kyiv on October 10 confirm that the photos show seriously injured people, not actors. The photos were also published on the front pages of foreign publications, which Russian propaganda accused of posting fake images.

Such information is distributed on social networks; in particular, fake accounts advertise this information on Facebook.

The Russian military is allegedly evacuating civilians from Kherson to protect people from shelling and possibly undermining the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant. It shows that they treat civilians more carefully than the Ukrainian military. The Ukrainian army allegedly prefers to take cover as civilians during hostilities. Since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Russian propagandists have been promoting the message that the Ukrainian military is using civilians as "human shields."

Propagandists show their careful attitude of the Russians towards the Ukrainians as a forced evacuation to Russia without the right to choose, the seizure of the homes of the people who evacuated, the abduction of children, and the intimidation that during the de-occupation all locals will be shot. Those civilians who disagree with Russian propaganda are kidnapped from their homes, tortured, and buried in mass graves.

"Human shield" is a standard element of the tactics of the Russian army: it was the case in Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria. It is happening now in Ukraine as well. The Russians practice creating a "human shield," organizing offline training in schools, creating huge queues of cars at roadblocks, and placing military equipment and personnel near residential buildings. Therefore, Russian soldiers are worse than terrorists who take hostages.

The report of the commission of the UN Human Rights Council, dedicated to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, mentions numerous violations of international law by Ukraine.

The Stop Fake fact-checkers noted that the report has 17 pages describing Russian crimes against Ukrainians. Among dozens of facts of torture, executions, and violence by the Russian occupiers against civilians in Ukraine, the document records two cases of Ukraine's mistreatment of Russian soldiers. The pro-Kremlin media ignored the main conclusion of international experts, who put the responsibility for numerous tortures, violence, and murders in Ukraine on the Russian armed forces.

Propagandists regularly resort to manipulations of this kind, where they single out the Ukrainian army's minor violations during the war, thus glossing over hundreds of terrible crimes and atrocities against the civilian population of the Russian military. They try to forget the war crimes committed by Russian soldiers or, in the last resort, assign them to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russian propaganda media spread such messages. Propagandists claim that Kyiv is committing an "insult" to Ukrainians who died due to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

This information is spread to whiten the reputation of the Russian occupiers. Russian propagandists call the exhumation of the bodies of people who died under occupation and buried in mass graves "the height of cynicism."

"Kyiv, to satisfy its political ambitions, mocks the graves of the dead civilians of Lyman... Kyiv not only brutally killed all these people but also tried to use them for its criminal purposes after their death," claim the propagandists.

Stopfake fact-checkers drew attention to the message. According to fact-checkers, the exhumation of bodies from spontaneous burials discovered in the de-occupied Lyman is necessary to establish the identity of the dead and the cause of their death. Most of those killed as a result of the actions of the Russian invaders are civilians.

Earlier, the Russian occupiers spread the same message about the mockery of bodies after the liberation of Izyum, where Ukraine also had to exhume the bodies.

The Russian propaganda media spread this thesis to neutralize the consequences of the Russian missile strikes, which the aggressor country inflicted on Kyiv on October 10. Propagandists claim that the photos of the aftermath of the shelling are fake and that people, who are allegedly injured, are actors. However, it is not true.

Fact-checkers from StopFake drew attention to the fake. The testimonies of photographers and journalists of international publications who worked during the tragedy and the stories of the injured people refute yet another Russian misinformation.

According to fact-checkers, international media journalists reported directly from the scene of the events. The gruesome footage from Kyiv hit the world media and shocked the public, but pro-Kremlin propagandists cynically claimed that the photos were fake. In fact, on October 10, the Russian army launched 84 cruise missiles and 24 unmanned aircraft.

The air defense of Ukraine managed to shoot down 43 rockets and 13 UAVs. As a result of the shelling, 19 people died, and 105 were injured of various severity. It isn`t the first time Russian propaganda has accused Ukraine of lying. Propagandists used similar rhetoric after the tragedy in Bucha or rocket attacks from Vinnytsia. In this way, they are trying to settle the guilt of Russia. It seems that Russia only launches missiles at military targets, doesn`t destroy civilian infrastructure, and doesn`t kill people.

Russian propagandist media reported it. The flow of refugees to Europe allegedly increased during October 10-11. Such information is not true.

As the spokesman of the State Border Service of Ukraine, Andriy Demchenko, reported, by October 10, the total flow of passengers across the state border amounted to 90,000 people per day in both directions. "As for October 10 and 11, the passenger flow across the state border decreased to 75,000 people per day in both directions. Besides, there was no advantage of exit over entry," he noted.

Also, these days, journalists who worked at international checkpoints in Moldova and Romania didn`t record "neither queues nor excitement."

Since the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the city of Lyman in the Donetsk region, anonymous telegram channels controlled by the FSB have been spreading such information. During the counteroffensive, the Ukrainian military allegedly received an order to destroy all the people who lived under the occupation. They mainly actively spread the message that it is as if the military is under orders to throw grenades into basements and shelters where people are hiding.

The Russian mass media spread a fake about the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are allegedly flooding Kyiv "in anticipation of a new attack on the capital." The reason for the appearance of the fake was a slight increase in the water level in the Dnipro (river) within the capital.

Fluctuations in water levels observed on the Dnipro within Kyiv are completely determined by the operating modes of the Dnipro reservoirs, writes StopFake. The company "Ukrhydroenergo," responsible for the operation of reservoirs, explained that minor fluctuations in water levels are due to the balancing of the Ukrainian energy system, which was subjected to a massive missile attack by Russia on October 10-11.

"We would like to remind you that as a result of damage to the infrastructure caused by Russian shelling, the load on the energy system of Ukraine increased. In turn, Ukrhydroenergo's HPP and GAES continue to operate as normal, providing coverage of peak loads, frequency, and power regulation, as well as a mobile emergency reserve in the United Energy System of Ukraine," Ukrhydroenergo is quoted as saying by StopFake. The KMDA separately emphasized that the rise in the water level in the Dnipro within Kyiv doesn't exceed emergency values ​​and is related to the intensive operation of the hydroelectric power station.

We will remind you that the Russian army recently tried to flood Kryvyi Rih and destroy the Karachuniv dam near the city, but they failed.

Such information is spread by pro-Russian Telegram channels, speculating on Russian shelling and the operation of air defense systems.

The day before, anti-aircraft defenses were allegedly taken away from the Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv regions, leaving these regions without adequate protection. Now, these systems are "urgently" returned. Instead, according to reports, Kyiv and Dnipro are "excessively" protected because they are "more strategically important" to the authorities. The same speculations were previously observed in local telegram channels of Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kharkiv regions, etc. Propagandists deliberately spread messages as "insides" or "rumors" after shelling, manipulating the victims' emotions and taking advantage of the fact that the location and number of anti-aircraft warning systems are not disclosed. In this way, the propagandists also advance the narrative about the division of Ukrainians by place of residence.

Russian and Ukrainian mass media spread the news that the head of the Federation Council Valentyna Matviyenko "called the Ukrainian delegation to immediate negotiations."

She made this statement at the G20 Heads of Parliament Summit in Indonesia. Ukrainian mass media reported on Matviyenko's statement concerning a brief report by Russian Interfax.

However, in the Telegram channel of the Federation Council, the press service distributed extensive quotes from Matviyenko's speech during the meeting and communication with journalists after it. It is clear from these messages that Matviyenko didn`t offer any negotiations.

Firstly, she called for "the settlement of the internal Ukrainian crisis", although there is no Ukrainian crisis, instead, there is Russia's war against Ukraine. Secondly, she said that "the status of the new four subjects of Russia" couldn`t be discussed, that is, the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions.

Finally, she declared that Russia was "ready to stop further hostilities, but on the terms that Russia would offer." So Matviyenko doesn`t actually offer any negotiations - it is an ultimatum. All these statements are needed only to tell in the news of the First Channel that "the curators of the West don`t allow the Ukrainian parliamentarians to achieve peace", forbidding them to negotiate.

Russian mass media, as well as pro-Russian bloggers and Telegram channels, write dozens of messages refuting "fake Ukrainian propaganda" about torture centers where teeth were pulled. Russian propaganda accuses the Ukrainian police and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine of spreading this fake.

Indeed, in a tweet by the Ministry of Defense, the torture chamber in the village of Pisky-Radkivski with the items found there - a gas mask, a box with extracted teeth and dentures - was called a "mini Auschwitz". That is, the report gives the impression that the Russian military tortured Ukrainians, pulling out their teeth, as the Nazis used to do in concentration camps.

Taras Topolya, a singer and now a soldier, drew the same parallel by comparing two photos - a black and white one from a German concentration camp, on which the gold crowns of the murdered people are visible, and a color photo from the Pisky-Radkivski torture chamber. Some Ukrainian mass media, referring to Taras Topolya, published news in which they claimed that the Russians pulled out the teeth of those who were abused in the torture chamber, but the Ukrainian police didn`t make such a statement.

On the contrary, it clearly stated that the police had evidence of torture using gas masks, as well as burying people alive in the ground. "A dildo, a box with torn dentures were also found in the torture chamber. Investigators and prosecutors are working to establish all the facts that happened in this torture chamber," said Serhii Bolvinov, head of the National Police Investigation Department in the Kharkiv region. So the police didn`t claim that the dentures belonged to the victims of the Russian military.

The day after the gruesome discovery, German journalists from the Bild tabloid found a local dentist in the village, who told them that the prostheses belonged to him, as he kept the removed prostheses of his patients. He also said that the Russians robbed his house, and he thinks they may have taken the box of prosthetics because they thought they were gold or to intimidate the Ukrainians who were being held in the torture chamber. After Bild's material appeared, some Ukrainian publications deleted the news in which they claimed that the Russians tortured prisoners by pulling out their teeth. But mostly, the Ukrainian mass media immediately wrote that the investigation is trying to establish all the circumstances of the crime.

Russian propaganda uses this case to prove that the Russians don`t torture Ukrainians at all, and every terrible find in the de-occupied territories is a fake. For this, for example, they kept quiet that in the Bild article residents talk about screams from the torture chambers, as well as about a person who was subjected to torture. That is, journalists don`t doubt that the Russians are torturing prisoners, civilians, or the military.

The Kremlin media reports this regarding collaborator Volodymyr Rogov. Ukraine allegedly blocked entry to the "liberated" part of the Zaporizhzhia region, so now residents can`t leave the territory controlled by Kyiv. People are allegedly not being released for various imaginary reasons and are being threatened. It is not so.

In fact, entry is blocked from both sides. The head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration Oleksandr Starukh explained that the entrance to the temporarily occupied part of the region was closed after the Russian military fired on a humanitarian convoy in Zaporizhzhia. A safer algorithm for the passage of vehicles to occupied territories is currently being developed. Serhii Haidai, the head of the Luhansk Regional State Administration, announced the closure of exits to the temporarily occupied territories through Zaporizhzhia due to the tragedy with the humanitarian convoy.

The information that the occupiers don`t allow Ukrainians to leave the temporarily occupied territories of the region is also confirmed by the local mass media. Now, to leave the occupation, the Russian military requires filling out applications, which must contain all personal data, copies of documents, information about the location at the time of departure, etc.

So the Ukrainian authorities have restricted entry for the safety of citizens, but instead, the occupiers are blocking passage to obtain personal information. Earlier, propagandists spread fakes about the fact that the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired upon refugee columns in Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv Region. And they also manipulated that Russia would "consult with the population" of the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia region regarding determining "borders". More details.

Pro-Russian Telegram channels write about it. He said that the very fact of a nuclear attack on Ukraine would be important, and they would not be able to figure out who would carry it out. Because of this, allegedly, the Ukrainian authorities issued a manual on the rules of behavior during a nuclear threat. Some anonymous Telegram channels are spreading rumors that the Americans will strike at the spent nuclear fuel storage in the Chornobyl zone.

Since February 24, Russia has systematically threatened Ukraine and the world with the use of nuclear weapons. At the beginning of a full-scale invasion, the Russians put the nuclear forces on special combat duty. During a speech on September 21, Putin again threatened the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the event of a "direct threat to Russian territory," saying that this was "not a bluff."

Considering the seriousness of the danger, the Ukrainian authorities developed appropriate recommendations for citizens, which agitprop immediately called "preparation for a nuclear accident."

Russian propaganda conducts informational terrorism to induce Ukraine to negotiate on the Kremlin's terms.

This message is spread by pro-Russian media. Allegedly, Ukraine is shelling Donbas with French self-propelled guns "Caesar", therefore France is complicit in "crimes" against the civilian population.

The fact-checkers of the EUvsDisinfo project drew attention to the message. Russian propaganda has been spreading the narrative that "Ukraine is shelling Donbas" since 2014. Agitprop baselessly called these actions genocide.

The atrocities of the Russian army in Ukraine have signs of genocide. Western countries are helping Ukraine resist the Russian invasion and supplying the necessary weapons. In particular, France provided the Armed Forces with 18 Caesar howitzers as part of military aid. It is also planned to deliver several additional units of this weapon (from 6 to 12). These self-propelled guns belong to the category of precision weapons, which limits collateral damage.

Earlier, propagandists spread fakes that the Ukrainians sold self-propelled howitzers "Caesar" to the Russians, and it turned out that they were allegedly not very effective weapons.

The message is spread by the Russian media concerning the deputy of the Russian Duma Serhii Mironov.

The Russian official called to "destroy" the entire infrastructure of Ukraine: traction substations, power plants, all bridges, and roads. He said it was necessary to "liberate" the territories and protect the lives of civilians. The message got into the Ukrainian information space through pro-Russian media.

According to the Center for Combating Disinformation, such statements are associated with defeats on the front line. The Russians, under the guise of rescuing civilians, openly call for the destruction of civilian objects. In this way, Russian propaganda exerts emotional pressure on Ukrainians — it tries to intimidate them, force them to surrender, and sow distrust in the actions of the authorities. Leaving people without light, heat, and means of livelihood is not "care" for the lives of civilians, but genocide, which Russia is trying to blackmail against the background of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

It is not the first time Russian agitprop has spread such messages. Similar calls were made during the liberation of the Kharkiv region. Moreover, on September 11, the Russians attacked the Kharkiv CHP plant and left several regions without electricity: Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, and partially Donetsk. At that time, the propagandists claimed that the Ukrainian energy system was under "self-fire."

Russian mass media spread such information. This happened allegedly after the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions "joined" Russia.

The so-called "referendums" were held in the four temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine and were not recognized by any democratic country in the world. People who didn`t evacuate from these regions were forced to participate in pseudo-referendums by blackmail and threats, and sometimes at gunpoint. Their "results" don`t reflect the will of the Ukrainians.

These pseudo-votes don`t change the borders of Ukraine, and the "temporarily occupied" status of several Ukrainian territories doesn`t deprive Ukraine of the right to use the internal seas.

This thesis is spread by the Russian propaganda media. Like, Volodymyr Zelenskyi is asking for a tribunal for Russia, but a real tribunal should be for the Ukrainian Nazis who neglecting all the legal norms of war and peace for eight years stormed the Luhansk and Donetsk regions and killed adults and children.

According to the EU vs Disinfo project analysts, this is a recurring disinformation thesis of the pro-Kremlin media that the Nazi junta ruling in Ukraine is persecuting ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

This statement was made to justify Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskyi came up with the idea of ​​a special UN tribunal to punish Russia for war crimes in Ukraine. He stated this in a speech at the UN General Assembly.

“Punishment for torture and humiliation of women and men. Punishment for the catastrophic turbulence that Russia provoked with its illegal war, and not only for us Ukrainians, but for the whole world,” Zelenskyi said. “Why were you silent for eight years when you were killing children in Donbas?” - this phrase and its variations are today one of the most popular arguments of Russia's supporters. More details in the text of Yaroslav Zubchenko.

Russian media write about this with reference to the so-called "chairman of the election commission of the Zaporizhzhia region" Halyna Katiushchenko. She reported that 85,000 residents allegedly “voted” in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia (32,000 of them allegedly outside the region), which is 51.55% of the total number of “voters”. It is not true.

The results of the so-called "referendums" in the territories of Ukraine occupied by Russia are not recognized by Ukraine or the world, since they are held in violation of all possible norms of international law and have no legal force.

Fact-checkers of the StopFake project note that the day before, propagandists reported that they had added 500,000 people to the “electoral lists” in the Zaporizhzhia region. In this case, 85,000 "voters" is only 17%. Now it is impossible to check how many people actually remained in the occupied territories. At the same time, the invaders claim that according to the “results of the referendum”, the entire Zaporizhzhia region will become part of Russia within the administrative boundaries established by Ukraine.

According to the Constitution of Ukraine, questions about changing the territory are decided exclusively by an all-Ukrainian referendum. So the figures and plans voiced by the invaders have nothing to do with reality.

On the eve of the pseudo-referenda, Russian propaganda was talking about the planned results of the “vote”.

Russian media write about this with reference to Foreign Minister Serhii Lavrov. Like, the International Criminal Court neglected to investigate crimes against humanity and war crimes committed on the territory of the temporarily occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Allegedly, more than 3,000 messages about crimes against the inhabitants of Donbass were sent there, and there was no reaction. It is not true.

Since 2014, the International Criminal Court has been investigating alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Ukraine in connection with Russian aggression. In particular, we are talking about the case “Probable crimes committed in the context of the situation in Ukraine since November 21, 2013”. The IСС takes into account Ukrainian and Russian data, evidence from third countries and information from civil society.

According to StopFake, Ukraine's first appeal to the IСС concerned crimes committed on the territory of Ukraine from November 21, 2013 to February 22, 2014. In September 2015, Ukraine filed a second appeal, in which it asked to investigate crimes on the territory of Ukraine committed from February 20, 2014 and without a specified end date.

In December 2020, the IСС announced its readiness to launch a criminal investigation into the commission of war crimes in the temporarily occupied Crimea and in Eastern Ukraine. The Office of the Prosecutor of the IСС concluded that crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed in Ukraine in the context of Russian aggression. The International Criminal Court noted that despite the fact that Ukraine initiated the investigation, the IСС during the preliminary investigation also took into account the data of Russia.

Ukraine now has the largest team of International Criminal Court experts in history, with a total of 42 investigators, forensic experts and support staff to investigate crimes under the authority's jurisdiction. The Office of the Prosecutor of the IСС in the spring of 2022 joined the Joint Investigation Team to Investigate Russian War Crimes in Ukraine (JIT). JIT was created by Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia. The group also includes the EU Criminal Justice Agency (Eurojust), where 27 EU member states and 10 other states are represented.

Thus, Russia is trying to manipulate information in order to cover up its crimes or spread messages ahead of time in order to reject the accusations made as a result of the international investigation.

Russian telegram channels write about such assumptions.

Allegedly, the Ukrainian special services will shake up the situation in Russia not only because of the protests, but also because of "working with mentally unstable elements."

Propagandists immediately drew parallels between the shooter from Izhevsk and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The man who caused the shooting at the Izhevsk school was wearing a T-shirt with Nazi symbols.

Also, the man who set fire to the recruiting office in Uriupynsk, Volhograd region, was called an ardent Nazi.

Like, Nazism is always evil, Nazism kills, Nazism is the same everywhere, so Russia is forced to conduct a military-political operation against the Nazis in Ukraine.

And the Russian military saved his life, according to the pro-Kremlin media. Like, on August 29, employees of the Ukrainian special services, dressed in military uniforms of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, promised to accompany the reporter Mattia Sorbi by taxi from Mykolayiv to the line of collision between Ukrainian and Russian troops. Approaching the combat area, the escorts left the car and sent the reporter along the mined road. A taxi with a journalist exploded on a Ukrainian minivan, the driver died, the Russian military who heard the explosion saved the journalist. Now he is in the territory controlled by Russia.

The Russians believe that the Ukrainian special services planned to wait for the death of the journalist as a result of shelling from Russian positions or explosion of a taxi on a mine for further accusations of Russia in the murder of Mattia Sorbi and a wide resonance in the Western media. It is not true.

At the end of August, Mattia Sorbi arrived in Mykolayiv, where, after some time, without permission, in violation of security rules, he left in the direction of the temporarily occupied Kherson, the Mykolayiv regional military administration said. Without the permission and escort of the Ukrainian military, he drove in the direction of Oleksandrivka (temporarily occupied territory between Mykolayiv and Kherson), which was in the “red zone” due to heavy fighting.

“Despite the widespread version of the Russian media about the alleged blowing up of the car, on the published videos you can see the damage to the car, more typical for shelling than blowing up a car on an anti-tank mine. Therefore, we can assume that at the entrance to the “red zone” the car was fired upon by the Russian occupation troops, and when they realized that it was the car of an Italian journalist, they decided to blame the Ukrainian side,” the Mykolayiv regional military administration believes.