Information is being spread online that a new “Women’s Day” campaign has appeared in Ukrainian gyms. It seems that only women and men with homosexual orientation are allowed to train on such promotional days, and the trainers are representatives of the LGBT community. As evidence, they add advertisements from Instagram of one of the fitness clubs in Zhytomyr, SportFit.

“Is this really the Europe that people were so eager to get to?”, propagandists comment.

VoxCheck analysts determined that there is no announcement on the Instagram page of the SportFit fitness club about holding promotional “Women’s Days”. In the propaganda note you can see the date on which the announcement was supposedly published - April 10. The gym's page posted only one message that day and not a single so-called announcement.

Russian propaganda presents any attempts by Ukraine to create a tolerant environment as a threat to the younger generation. Allegedly, children suffer from the dominance of “Sodom”, which, according to the Kremlin, is turning Ukrainians into homosexuals. We described the horrors of Western “homodictatorship” and how Europe allegedly influences Ukraine in this way in a large study about homophobia on social networks.

Moreover, homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality.

By the way, how Russia is trying to protect children from the “undesirable influence of LGBT people” - read here. And how it also justifies its invasion as an LGBT invasion - find out in a study based on the results of an analysis of messages during the year of a full-scale invasion.

Russian propagandists and media broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric spread information that the Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine Vadym Huttsait said that Ukraine is ready to go to the Olympic Games together with Russians and Belarusians. It's fake.

The case was studied by the fact-checkers of the Center for Strategic Communications. In fact, Vadym Huttsait, in an interview with the Japanese news agency KYODO NEWS, said that after the International Olympic Committee did not invite Russia and Belarus to the Olympics, Ukraine decided to compete for licenses for the Olympics in all international competitions where there are no Russian and Belarusian flags. The National Olympic Committee of Ukraine (NOC) has a clear position that “peace in Ukraine is non-negotiable”, and the Olympic Games “should not be a platform for whitewashing or legitimizing actions that are completely contrary to these values”. Also, there is still no final decision on the participation of Ukraine in the Olympics in the event that Russians are admitted to them.

Thus, Russian propaganda is trying to discredit the Ukrainian authorities and sow discouragement among Ukrainians. We have previously talked about the tactics of how Russian propaganda uses sports to spread anti-Ukrainian narratives. 

Such information was disseminated in social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo recently allegedly featured an illustration on its cover of the recent situation at the World Fencing Championships in Milan. Then the Ukrainian saber fencer Olha Kharlan refused to shake hands with the losing rival from Russia. In the messages they add that the authors ridiculed the act of the Ukrainian athlete. It is not true.

Fact-checkers of the StopFake project investigated this case and determined that such a cover does not exist. According to the archive, there is no magazine with this cover on the official website. At the same time, the false cover was made using Photoshop.

Thus propagandists seek to show that their rhetoric is also being repeated in the West. So readers can get the impression that the whole world is opposed to Ukraine and supports Russia.

Such information was disseminated in social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that Dmytro Kuleba is “afraid” of the victory of Russian and Belarusian tennis players at Wimbledon, as the tournament authorities recently lifted the ban on the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes. Like, Dmytro Kuleba “banned” Russian and Belarusian female tennis players from defeating Ukrainian women. As evidence, the authors of the messages refer to the material of the British edition of Express. It is not true.

The experts of the StopFake project drew attention to the case and found that this quote was invented. In a commentary to Express, Kuleba noted that the admission of Russian and Belarusian tennis players to Wimbledon would be a victory for Russian propaganda and a sign that the West “can be shaken”.

Tennis players from Russia and Belarus will be able to play at the Wimbledon tournament in 2023. The decision to admit athletes was made by the organizer of the tournament, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC). At the same time, only neutral athletes will be allowed to compete in the tournament, and only those who do not receive any state funding from Russia or Belarus. First of all, athletes should not support Russia's invasion of Ukraine. According to the BBC, the players and their team members will sign an appropriate declaration with the specified conditions of participation. Violation of the declaration entails a fine or disqualification.