The holiday is coming and the fakes invented by Russian propaganda are becoming more and more like fairy tales. The fact-checkers of the Myth Detector edition recorded the distribution of a photo collage in Russian telegram channels, where Volodymyr Zelenskyi is supposedly sitting on Santa Claus’s lap and “asking him for another 50 billion dollars”. It's fake.

It was created by the American fictional satirical news outlet Babylon Bee. Today, on the front page of this publication is the news that Max will remain in the position of CEO of Twitter, if they count the votes received by mail. Also, that Cain killed Abel in the field, and not at home, so that the elf on the mantelpiece would not see this. Obviously, the news about Zelenskyi was about US President Joseph Biden signing a budget for next year, in which $ 45 billion is allocated to help Ukraine and its allies. This year, financial assistance to Ukraine amounted to $ 28 billion - and this does not include the cost of weapons transferred by partners of the Ukrainian army.

Kremlin resources are spreading the thesis that after the de-occupation Crimea and Donbas will be given “as a sacrifice to russophobic foreigners”. Volodymyr Zelenskyi allegedly said this while speaking in the Verkhovna Rada. This is a fabrication.

In fact, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, during his annual address to the Verkhovna Rada, spoke about the restoration, development of the country and the temporarily occupied territories after the war, and that Ukraine should provide priority conditions for those foreign companies that were in Ukraine or came to Ukraine during war, or left the Russian market during the war.

Such messages are distributed through social networks and hostile telegram channels. It says that the Parliament resorts to tricks: publishes a variety of videos from computer games, passing it off as real footage. They say that Ukraine is suffering huge defeats and is trying to somehow stabilize the mood of the population. Propagandists add to their message a likely screenshot, which allegedly depicts a publication from the telegram channel of the Verkhovna Rada. However, this is a fabrication.

According to VoxCheck fact checkers, there is no evidence that the telegram channel of the Verkhovna Rada published or reposted such a message. Experts in the course of the investigation did not find such a publication.

Moreover, the official telegram channel of the Parliament has been verified and has a corresponding “✓” flag, which indicates the authenticity of the channel. There is no flag on the propaganda screenshot. In addition, on the screenshot of the telegram channel, one can see that the number of subscribers reaches about 350 thousand. However, about 223 thousand people have subscribed to the official telegram channel of the Verkhovna Rada.

Propagandists are spreading this fake to nourish the narrative that Ukraine is losing in this war.

Such messages are distributed through social networks and hostile telegram channels. It says that it is forbidden to transfer funds to help Ukraine in Switzerland. Like, all charitable platforms are inactive in the country. As evidence, the propagandists attach a video from a TikTok user in which she allegedly complains that she cannot transfer money to Ukraine. However, this is not true.

According to StopFake experts, in Switzerland there is no ban on transferring money to any account in Ukraine. Fact-checkers say that Switzerland is among the top ten countries whose residents most often donate money to help Ukraine through the United24 platform, including for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Propagandists are spreading this fake to once again discredit Ukraine and show that it is not supported by the West, which prohibits the transfer of funds from its banks. Thus, they are trying to hint that no one wants to help Ukraine and Ukrainians. However, the absolute assistance of our partners demonstrates the true attitude of the world to the war in Ukraine.

A new stamp, which was released in Poland, is being distributed on social networks. It depicts Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi with a mustache similar to that of Adolf Hitler. Social media users ask in the comments if one can send letters with such stamps to Israel. However, this is fake.

In Poland they really issued a stamp with the image of Volodymyr Zelenskyi. However, this is not an official stamp issued by the Polish Post. According to VoxCheck, the issue of such a stamp is an initiative of the deputy of the Krakow City Council Lukasz Wantuch, and not the Polish Post. The funds received from the sale of the stamp are planned to be transferred to humanitarian aid to Ukraine. But a modified image of this stamp is distributed on the web.

Russian propaganda has repeatedly spread fakes associating Volodymyr Zelenskyi with Adolf Hitler. And in such a way the disinformation narrative “Ukrainians are Nazis” is being promoted.

Russian media write about it. Like, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken admitted that the US was preparing for war with Russia at the beginning of Biden's presidency, “leaving the Afghans to their own devices”. It is not true.

Anthony Blinken didn't say that at the press conference. These words were made up by propagandists. Blinken noted that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan should be considered in the future. In particular, the completion of the Afghan mission now allows the United States and partners to provide significant support to Ukraine in the fight against Russian aggression.

Russian propaganda systematically spreads disinformation messages that in Ukraine they are at war with the “collective West”, NATO or the United States, and not with Ukraine. 

A photo of graffiti allegedly from Madrid is circulating on the network, in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi is depicted as a locust devouring the European Union. The reports say that the graffiti was allegedly painted by artists from the Madrid group Typicaloptical. It's fake.

MythDetector project fact-checkers checked the information about the graffiti and found that this photo was modified using software. In fact, there is no such graffiti in the photo from Plaza de las Cortes in Madrid on December 27th. The source of the fake photos is an Instagram account that continued to distribute fabricated photos of Zelenskyi's caricatured graffiti.

Russian agitprop is conducting a systemic campaign to discredit President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi with the help of cartoon graffiti and fake covers of satirical magazines.

Russian media and pro-Russian resources write about this. Like, in the Pentagon, a weapons check was carried out, provided to Ukraine as military assistance. Allegedly, only 10% were able to confirm the presence in Ukraine, the location of the remaining 90% is unknown. It is not true.

Russian propaganda is based on the words of Brian Dean Wright, who worked at the Pentagon until 2015 and now opposes the provision of assistance to Ukraine. Officially, the US Department of Defense has not made any statements about the weapons provided to Ukraine. According to official information, the Pentagon is checking the stocks of delivered military equipment in Ukraine and there is no evidence of the “redirection” of American aid.

Russian propaganda is systematically spreading messages that military aid provided to Ukraine is being stolen or resold on the black market. Thus, they are trying to discredit Ukraine and level out international support. 

Russian propagandists spread information that Ukraine allegedly intends to “seek and punish” people who will celebrate the New Year according to Moscow time, that is, an hour earlier. Local chats warn Ukrainians about this.

They say that Ukrainians are called upon to “keep an eye on their neighbors and call the SSU by phone” if someone “dares” to celebrate a holiday, Moscow time, even in their homes “at midnight Moscow time”. Allegedly, such citizens will be accused under the article “Treason of the Motherland” of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. It's fake.

Throughout Ukraine on New Year's Eve there will be a curfew from 23:00 to 5:00 and a ban on the use of pyrotechnics. It is forbidden to be outside during curfew. Therefore, it is not clear how they will “detect” people who are supposedly going to celebrate the New Year according to Moscow time. The statement that such people will be punished for “state treason” is also not true.

StopFake journalists checked the information in open sources and did not find any reports of “raids” on New Year's Eve. Earlier, propagandists wrote that in Ukraine they decorate Christmas trees with toys with Nazi symbols.

The network is spreading a screenshot allegedly from the air of the 1 + 1 TV channel, where during the weather forecast a map of Ukraine was shown without the territories temporarily occupied by Russia. This is not true.

In fact, they showed a whole map with the borders of Ukraine on the air. The photo circulated on the net shows the logos of two separate programs at once: “Breakfast with 1 + 1” and “TSN”. VoxCheck fact-checkers found that the still image distributed on the network was taken from the program “Breakfast with 1 + 1” on December 5. This indicates an identical background on the original and edited image. The program showed not only a full map of Ukraine, but they began to tell the weather forecast from the East of Ukraine.

In social networks, allegedly, a photo of the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated December 7 on the business trip of 1,796 doctors from state medical institutions of the “Lviv, Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Uzhhorod” regions to medical institutions in Mykolaiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions is distributed. The reports claim that the decision was published on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers, and a few minutes later removed. It is not true.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine did not make such a decision, and a photo of the document was created in a graphic editor. Fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project note that there are many errors in the fake document. For example, the Transcarpathian region is indicated as Uzhhorod region, the norms of official record keeping are not observed. On the website of the Cabinet of Ministers under the number 1363, a decree of December 6 is indicated with a completely different content.

A video is circulating online in which an elderly woman allegedly complains to the Polish authorities that she was “robbed” by Ukrainian refugees, whom she settled in her apartment. In different versions of the story, either the woman’s children or the city authorities persuaded the 73-year-old Polish woman to give shelter to a Ukrainian family. It seems that the Ukrainians robbed a woman, smashed the apartment, ran into debt for housing and disappeared. The victim allegedly vainly demands compensation from the authorities. It is not true.

The video has nothing to do with Ukraine. StopFake fact-checkers found out that this video first appeared online on April 24, 2018. An elderly woman in the video complains that she was not provided with the promised services - the replacement of all equipment with the Internet and television. The video was probably filmed at the customer service office of the company "Vectra", which provides telecommunications services in Poland.

This cover is distributed in social networks and instant messengers. Like, this is a special edition released on the eve of the festive period. The image shows the cover of December 22, 2022, the issue number 1588. The picture also has a text: “Stop whining, we need it more”. It's fake.

Reuters fact-checkers drew attention to the spread of the fake. At the time of checking, on December 23, the latest issue of the magazine was December 21, number 1587, with a cartoon of the World Cup in Qatar. There is no issue for December 22 on the pages of the publication on social networks. The fake cover was published against the background of the visit of Volodymyr Zelenskyi to the United States. Because of the text in the picture, they hint at a propaganda message that Ukraine is “begging” for help from Western partners.

Anonymous telegram channels write about this after the massive shelling of Kherson on the morning of December 24. According to one version of propagandists, the Ukrainian military fired at the center of Kherson from HIMARS, and according to another, they hit the city from “Grad” multiple rocket launchers. However, none of these versions is true.

The propagandists assure that impressive elements found in the form of shrapnel testify to the shelling from HIMARS and prove this with photographs. As the Stop Fake fact-checkers found out, along with a real photo with a car, propagandists published a photo with balloons taken in 2016 in Kuwait. It does show tungsten balls from the M30A1 multiple launch rocket system.

The version of the propagandists about the attack on the Grad multiple launch rocket systems was refuted by both the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Tymoshenko and foreign experts.

The propagandists spread an “analysis” of photographs of one of the Grad craters, which allegedly proves that the fire was fired from the north, from the territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Like, the funnel in the photo was cleaned up, but the furrows from the debris on the pavement were not removed. Behind them, you can easily establish where the shell came from, namely from the north, from where there are no Russian soldiers.

The photographs used by the propagandists were indeed taken at the site of the tragedy, and the analysis of the shelling itself was falsified. This is stated in the investigation of OSINT analyst DefMon.

The analyst argues that the projectile was fired from the southeast and most likely by the Russian military. His conclusions are confirmed by Bild journalist Julian Repke, who previously investigated similar cases of shelling in Donbas in 2015. Repke also calculated the direction of the projectile launch, coinciding with the results of DefMon: presumably, the projectile was fired from the left bank of the Dnipro, now under the control of Russian troops.

As a result of Russian shelling of the center of Kherson, 13 people were killed, 64 were injured with varying severity.

This is not the first time that Kremlin propagandists have tried to cover up the shelling of the civilian population and civilian facilities in Ukraine, calling them “another Ukrainian provocation” carried out in order to discredit the Russian military.

It was these fakes that propagandists spread after the missile attack on the Kramatorsk railway station, Zaporizhzhia and other cities of Ukraine, where dozens of civilians were killed.

Such information is being disseminated in social networks with a link to a fake page of the Ukrenergo company. These messages were discovered and warned of a fake by specialists from the national energy company Ukrenergo.

“Emergency shutdowns are a forced step, applied only in the presence of a deficit in order to maintain a balance of production and consumption in the energy system. Power engineers will be able to refuse them only after the complete cessation of enemy attacks on our energy system”, the Ukrenergo telegram channel says.

The company stressed that Ukrenergo has only one official Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/npcukrenergo and only one official telegram channel https://t.me/Ukrenergo.

“Something else, created under our logo in social networks, is also a fake of the Russian IPSO”, Ukrenergo noted.

Fake power outages are another attempt by Russia to stir up Ukrainian society and encourage dissatisfaction with the authorities and protests against the war.

This was written by some Russian media and anonymous telegrams.

Allegedly, planned hospitalizations were suspended in Kyiv for an indefinite period, as hospitals are overflowing with wounded soldiers from the Bakhmut direction. This is allegedly evidenced by a report by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which says that “only one such hospital receives up to 100 seriously wounded soldiers per day”.

The suspension of planned hospitalizations in Kyiv is not at all connected with “overcrowding of hospitals”, but with continuous Russian shelling of the energy system and other critical infrastructure of Ukraine, which entails possible emergency shutdowns of electricity, heat and water supply.

In early December, Deputy Minister of Health of Ukraine Mariia Karchevych announced that in case of a prolonged shutdown of electricity, heat and water supply in Ukraine, the Ministry of Health would suspend planned hospitalizations and operations in hospitals.

The statement of propagandists that hospitals in Kyiv are overflowing with wounded Ukrainian soldiers brought to the capital from the direction of Bakhmut has no evidence. The authors of such publications refer to a report in the newspaper Corriere della Sera, which allegedly confirms this thesis. The journalists of the publication do write that the hospital they managed to visit is overflowing with wounded soldiers, but the medical institution referred to in the report is not located at all in Kyiv, but near Bakhmut.

‘Yesterday afternoon we reached the Lyman hospital, a town about fifty kilometers east of Bakhmut, where dozens of seriously wounded were stabilized by doctors before they were rushed to the major medical facilities in Dnipro and Kyiv. The center is deserted, the destruction is enormous: perhaps, out of more than 30,000 inhabitants at the beginning, a few thousand now remain”, the Corriere della Sera article says.

Currently, Bakhmut in the Donetsk region remains the hottest spot along the entire frontline with more than 1300 km of active hostilities. Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said that medical facilities in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine are overloaded and unable to cope with a large number of wounded Russian occupation troops.

Russian propaganda deliberately spreads disinformation about the losses of the Ukrainian army in order to emotionally put pressure on the Ukrainians and divert attention from the losses in their own army. Earlier, they said that the Ukrainian authorities are lying to the Ukrainians, that there are no losses in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the losses near Bakhmut are colossal.

Such information was disseminated by anonymous telegram channels posing as Odesa ones. They mix posts with declarations of love for Odesa and its history with explicit Kremlin narratives, the Center for Strategic Communications reports.

According to them, allegedly in Odesa there is a business to collect biomaterial from dead Ukrainian soldiers who become posthumous donors. They say that the remains of the bodies are burned, the dead are given the status of “missing”, and biomaterials are taken out to Lviv twice a week. It is not true.

In fact, Russian propaganda has been constantly promoting the message for the past eight years that Ukraine is a “supplier of spare parts for Americans and Europeans” and has become a center for illegal transplants and organ trafficking.

Kremlin-controlled anonymous telegram channels have circulated a number of photos of Christmas tree decorations with swastikas and other Nazi symbols claiming they were in Ukraine. In reality, this is not true.

On Flickr, a photo and video sharing and archiving website, swastika Christmas decorations were published in 2011. They were later distributed by Slate.fr. Also, these toys are mentioned in a scientific article in Polish about the celebration of Christmas during the Second World War.

These photos were taken at the Bread and Art Museum (until 2018 Bread Culture Museum) in Ulm. In 2013, German art historians exhibited a collection of 400 Christmas tree decorations from the Third Reich to demonstrate how fanatics changed the symbols of Christmas.

Among the old photographs with Nazi symbols, the propagandists published one fresh photograph, which has Christmas decorations with the inscriptions “Glory to the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, “Azov”, “Right Sector”. The propagandists stole this photo from the site olx.ua, which sells New Year’s patriotic toys.

Russian propaganda regularly disseminates “evidence” of Ukraine’s alleged adherence to Nazi ideology in order to justify the need for its fictional “denazification” of Ukraine. 

This information was spread by pro-Russian social networks. Allegedly, the Russian military during the night assault on Bakhmut captured a volunteer from the “Revansh” (Revenge) battalion, Stanislav Kolomiiets.

In the spring, Kolomiiets recorded a video in the village of Moshchun, Kyiv region, where, against the backdrop of dead Russians, he says that “these jackals” failed to plunder the property of Ukrainians. This video was used by Russian propagandists, saying that this soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was “found, taken and punished”. As evidence, they published a video in which he allegedly “apologizes” to the Russian occupiers while in captivity.

In fact, Stanislav Kolomiiets, who before the full-scale war led the municipal inspectorate in the Cherkasy city council, is still in Kyiv and cannot be on the other side of the front line in the Donbas. This was confirmed by the former people's deputy Ihor Mosiichuk, godfather of Kolomiiets.

Russian propagandists in this way intimidate the Ukrainians and, against the backdrop of their own defeats, create a deceptive effect that achieves success at the front.

Such information was disseminated by pro-Russian telegram channels. Allegedly, in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, people went to a rally against the supply of weapons to Ukraine, and the police dispersed them with NATO water cannons. As proof, propagandists published a video that actually turned out to be a story about an action during the coronavirus pandemic two years ago.

The only true thing here is that the video is really from Bratislava.

A reverse Google image search and Google Streets can be used to determine that the events are taking place under the office on Freedom Square.

A Google search for the keywords "protest", "Bratislava", "water cannon" gives messages about an anti-government rally in Bratislava in October 2020 due to dissatisfaction with the measures taken during the coronavirus pandemic.

Advanced search on the Twitter social network for the phrase Bratislava protest, as well as for the dates from October 16 to October 19, 2020, shows several messages about the protest.

In a screenshot from the video posted by a ZNeveri user, one can see the same man with a phone in front of a water cannon, who appears in the video of the alleged protest in December 2022 against the supply of weapons by Slovakia to Ukraine.

In addition, according to the same search on the social network Twitter, there is also a link to Youtube, although the video has already been deleted. But it can be viewed using the Wayback machine online archive. It shows the same man with a telephone in front of a water cannon, and an operator in the background. It appears that the propagandist's footage was filmed on his camera.

This video is also dated October 17, 2020, when an anti-government action using a water cannon took place in Bratislava, and not a protest against arms supplies to Ukraine in December 2022.

And the weather is far from winter. In the video, you can see trees that are full of green and some purple leaves. In reality, the picture is different as the online camera from Bratislava shows almost bare trees.

On December 24, the Russian Ministry of Defense once again returned to statements about “US military biological activities in Ukraine”, allegedly as a result of the investigation, they discovered that the United States conducted studies and training with pathogens of especially dangerous infections on Ukrainian territory.

On December 24, the Russian Ministry of Defense once again returned to statements about “US military biological activities in Ukraine”, allegedly as a result of the investigation, they discovered that the United States conducted studies and training with pathogens of especially dangerous infections on Ukrainian territory.

This time, the Russian department notes that the president of the Pfizer international research department and ex-heads of structures of the US Department of Health are involved in the “biological laboratories”. Like, all the listed participants in military biological projects in Ukraine are associated with the US Democratic Party.

Allegedly, the Pentagon is transferring the unfinished research in Ukraine to the countries of Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

We remind that there have never been “American Pentagon biolabs” in Ukraine, this is a Russian fake that has been spreading since 2010 and has been debunked many times. Only during the war in Ukraine, it was refuted by the Pentagon, the US State Department, and representatives of the EU, the Foreign Ministry, and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine.

This information was disseminated by Russian resources with alleged photo evidence.

Basically, it's a photo fake. Russian propagandists changed the original photo so that the signature of the 46th separate airmobile brigade of the Airborne Assault Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine resembled the emblem of the armed formations of the National Socialist Workers' Party in Nazi Germany. The original image is depicted in such a way that the number 46 looks like the emblem of the SS.

The fact that propagandists spread the fake photo can also be understood from the fact that in it the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi is standing on the left, and US Vice President Kamala Harris is on the right. In the original photo, the opposite is true, and it was this photo of the Ukrainian president against the background of the flag that was published by many world media, depicting exactly how the politicians were. This episode can be seen in the plots of various TV channels, on the broadcast of Zelenskyi's visit to Congress.

Russian propaganda regularly disseminates “evidence” of the alleged adherence of the Ukrainian authorities to Nazi ideology in order to justify the need for their fictitious “denazification” of Ukraine. More details.

Such messages are circulated on social networks and propaganda media. They say that the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Political Security does not expect the adoption of a new package of sanctions. Like, Borrell, accordingly, does not want his approval. However, this is not true.

According to the fact-checker of the StopFake project, Borrell said earlier that, in his opinion, the next package of sanctions against Russia could be approved “in a few days”, which happened as a result. That is, even before the EU summit, Josep Borrell, on the contrary, expressed the hope that the ninth package of sanctions against Russia would soon be approved. In addition, he never said that he did not expect the adoption of the next package of sanctions.

Propagandists are spreading this fake to nourish the narrative of allegedly unfairly imposed sanctions on Russia, and that some high-ranking officials refuse to participate in the adoption of the new package.

In the Ukrainian segment of Facebook, reports are spreading that Ukrenerho has allegedly created an interactive Light Map, where you can see the light in all regions. However, this is not true.

Experts of the “Brekhunets” (Liar) project say that Ukrenerho did not make such a map. Going to their website, the fact checkers did not find anything. By clicking on the links indicated in the message, they also did not find the expected map, but only a telegram channel chat.

By spreading such messages, scammers are trying to gain an audience on their channels, because the mailing method is beneficial for community administrators in social networks in order to increase activity and the number of comments in their chats and under messages.

A seemingly new cover of the Spanish satirical magazine El Jueves is being distributed online. The cartoon depicts a frightened Polish president with the caption: “I don't want war with Russia!”. However, this is not true.

Voxcheck experts said that there is no cover with a cartoon distributed on the web on the official pages of the magazine. On the barcode of the cover of the magazine there are numbers - 02375 (issue number) and a barcode. However, the cover with this number looks different.

Propagandists have repeatedly falsified the covers of various magazines to convince the public that the whole world is actually mocking Ukrainian and Western officials. In this way, they spread theses that are beneficial to pro-Kremlin propaganda: if not only propagandists, but also “the whole world” talk about it, then it seems that the messages are true.