Russian and pro-Kremlin media have spread a fake that the Russian military allegedly captured a military instructor who was training the Azov battalion, the commander of the NATO Joint Ground Forces Command, Lieutenant General Roger L. Cloutier Jr. of the US Army, writes Georgian portal. myth." Cloutier posted a message on his LinkedIn account and said he was at the European Joint Forces headquarters in Izmir, Turkey. The Facebook page of the NATO Joint Land Command also published a photo from Izmir in which Cloutier was present.

The Russian Defense Ministry and Russian media are spreading a fake that the Ukrainian authorities imposed a long curfew in Irpen, Kiev region, to allegedly prepare "staged filming of pseudo-proofs of Russia's guilt in the mass deaths of local residents. In fact, during this time, municipal services must clear Irpen of explosive objects, abandoned cars, consequences of explosions, etc. Back on March 30, Irpin Mayor Oleksandr Makrushyn reported that up to 300 civilians and 50 military personnel had been killed in the city, according to preliminary data. At the same time, images of Irpen liberated from the Russian occupation began to be published.

On March 31, 2022, the deputy commander of the Azov regiment, Sviatoslav Palamar (call sign "Kalina"), was killed in social networks. He was allegedly on the Mi-8 helicopter shot down by pro-Russian fighters near Mariupol. VoxCheck reported that with the help of the blog of the investigative journalist Oryx, it can be confirmed that Ukraine did lose one Mi-8 on March 31. However, there is no list of the military personnel on board the Mi-8 in open sources. At the same time, we can definitely exclude that Svyatoslav Palamar was in the helicopter. After all, Palamar recorded three video messages on the official Azov channel - March 31, April 2 and April 4. Also, on April 2, he twice commented for the media - Channel 5 and Radio NV.

Propagandists in social networks are walking around with messages that the dead girl from Bucha, whose photo was distributed at the beginning of April, turned out to be alive. In such posts, they add a screenshot of a message of the user Nastia Savchyshyn, who was allegedly in the photo of the victims in Bucha. According to VoxCheck, in a letter the girl denies her death. However, it is a fake, because there is a completely different person on the photo from Bucha. And the user Nastia Savchyshyn was never declared dead, she simply published a photo of herself in similar clothing for the flash mob "I was killed by russian soldiers because I was Ukrainian". More details.

Russian propaganda media wrote about it. In particular, RIA Novosti. The reports said that journalists received an audio conversation by Rzhavsky, in which he tells why, in his opinion, Ukraine does not need to join the EU. One of the reasons is that Ukraine, in his opinion, means nothing to the EU. However, Rzhavsky, a pro-Russian politician, died on March 27 in his home in Bucha when he was shot by a drunken Russian soldier demanding alcohol. Russian media publications do not mention Rzhavsky's death or his circumstances.

This was stated by the deputy Russian ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy. He states that there is no question of forming an international investigative group "on the provocation" in Bucha yet, and also said that "we do not believe in principle in any 'independent' investigations to be conducted by Western states and Ukraine." As a reminder, Russian authorities previously called the tragedy in Bucha only a provocation and a production for the Western media to discredit Russia and its army. The UN, Amnesty International and many other international organizations spoke about the need to investigate war crimes in the Kiev region committed by Russian troops, representatives of different countries also stated about it, hundreds of journalists from all over the world visited the site of the tragedy, EU representatives, evidence of the crimes. are collected by international human rights activists, foreign specialists-criminologists, representatives of the International Criminologist on trial.

In such messages, propagandists claim that "Ukrainian nationalists" and, in particular, the Azov regiment defending Mariupol allegedly seized two foreign vessels in the Sea of Azov - the "Tsarevna" and the "Lady Augusta" and respectively - are holding their crews hostage. According to StopFake, propagandists also claim that the Azov regiment is allegedly firing mortars at civilian ships, preventing the evacuation of their crews. In fact, this is not true. According to StopFake, the information that Azov allegedly seized the Tzarevna was denied by two Bulgarian ministries at once - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense. StopFake was also unable to find any facts confirming the seizure of the ship Lady Augusta. "In addition, human rights activists have repeatedly recorded the fact that civilian ships were fired upon by Russian troops," the fact checkers wrote.

This is the second time the Russian media spread a fake that the Ukrainian armed forces blew up a nitric acid tanker at the Zarya plant in Rubizhne, Luhansk region. The first fake was on April 5, when a nitric acid tanker at the Zarya plant was damaged by Russian artillery fire. The second was on April 9, when Russian troops blew up cisterns at the same plant. The main argument of Russian propaganda is that the Ukrainian military was allegedly retreating from the city and had an explosion as a last resort. Serhii Haidai, head of the Luhansk OVA, said that for a month and a half now the Russian army has not been able to break through towards Luhansk, so there is no question of capitulation, surrender of the city and withdrawal of Ukrainian troops. StopFake writes that the nitrogen explosion in Rubizhne on April 9, according to preliminary estimates, has a kill zone of no more than 550 meters, which gives no tactical advantage to the Ukrainian military, but creates problems for the maintenance of the city.

This is the second time the Russian media spread a fake that the Ukrainian armed forces blew up a nitric acid tanker at the Zarya plant in Rubizhne, Luhansk region. The first fake was on April 5, when a nitric acid tanker at the Zarya plant was damaged by Russian artillery fire. The second was on April 9, when Russian troops blew up cisterns at the same plant. The main argument of Russian propaganda is that the Ukrainian military was allegedly retreating from the city and had an explosion as a last resort. Serhii Haidai, head of the Luhansk OVA, said that for a month and a half now the Russian army has not been able to break through towards Luhansk, so there is no question of capitulation, surrender of the city and withdrawal of Ukrainian troops. StopFake writes that the nitrogen explosion in Rubizhne on April 9, according to preliminary estimates, has a kill zone of no more than 550 meters, which gives no tactical advantage to the Ukrainian military, but creates problems for the maintenance of the city.

Russian media are spreading reports that EU chief diplomat Josep Borrel allegedly "wished for a military solution to the conflict. StopFake writes that Russian propagandists spread part of his tweet about the results of his trip to Ukraine: "This war must be won on the battlefield. In fact, the full version of the quote is: "This war will be won on the battlefield. We will allocate an additional 500 million euros. Weapons supplies will be tailored to Ukraine's needs." In the following tweet, Borrell explains that the reason for the increased support for Ukraine is Russia's war crimes, in particular the shelling of Kramatorsk by Russian troops. Borrel sees sanctions as the main means of "pressure on Russia." "We need to continue to increase the pressure on Russia. We have already imposed large-scale sanctions, but we need to do more in the energy sector, particularly oil."

A satellite image is spreading in the network, which allegedly shows 30 thousand bags with the corpses of Azov fighters in Mariupol. VoxCheck denied the fake, noting that the images, taken on March 29, 2022 by the Maxar Technologies Worldview-3 satellite, show about a hundred people in line in front of one of the surviving grocery stores in Mariupol. "Civilians were waiting in line to get food and other necessary items. Now there is a humanitarian disaster in Mariupol - no food, medicine, electricity and heating. Russian troops are not allowing humanitarian aid into the city," the factcheckers told.

The Facebook page, which was created only in January 2022, circulated a video showing a squad of fighters, one of whom had a chevron with the Tornado battalion emblem on it. It is noteworthy that only one fighter has the Tornado chevron - no other insignia is visible in the video. The angle for the video was chosen so that the chevron was in the frame. All the soldiers were wearing balaclavas for the formation in the room, hiding their faces. We can assume that they knew that the video would be recorded. In the video, the fighters are allegedly read out the decree of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the transfer of hostilities to the territory of Russia. In this video, Zelenskyy is referred to as the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In fact, the commander-in-chief of the AFU is Valerii Zaluzhnyi, and Zelenskyy is the supreme commander of the AFU. The order read out stated that it was necessary to prepare a number of units of the Ukrainian army "to carry out combat operations in the directions: the city of Belgorod and the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation". It was impossible to establish when this video was recorded, because the metadata was erased. Earlier, the Center for Counteracting Information under the CNSD warned that Russia was preparing new provocations in Belgorod to accuse Ukraine. The AFU General Staff also repeatedly reported that Ukrainian troops were conducting defensive operations.

Russian propaganda media are spreading reports that the Ukrainian authorities, with the support of Western countries, are allegedly "preparing an action with mass extermination of civilians" in the occupied areas of Luhansk Region, "preparing a shooting provocation with shooting of ambulances" in Severodonetsk District, "blowing up the reserve area. This is all allegedly to accuse the Russian military and Russian-controlled militants. The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security noted that Russia is again trying to shift responsibility for the crimes committed to Ukraine. "Given that during the 8 years of war in eastern Ukraine not a single Ukrainian government has considered the military option of returning the temporarily occupied territories, accusations of provocations by the Russian Federation are meaningless. Russia will have to take responsibility for the extermination of the civilian population of Ukraine, as the International Courts are already working on the investigation of the crimes committed by the occupiers on the territory of our state," the Center added.

Unidentified people wrote to Russian "Wikipedia" that activist and leader of "Democratic Axe" Yuri Gudymenko died on March 30. Gudymenko pointed this out to him. On 11 March this information was removed from Wikipedia, noting: "Yury Gudymenko is alive. This is confirmed by his Instagram posts from March 30." Russian propaganda uses Wikipedia as a tool for spreading its manipulations and narratives - this is evidenced, in particular, by the large number of disagreements in the Ukrainian and Russian versions of Wikipedia regarding the same cases or personalities; there have been repeated cases of editing facts and attempts to remove materials from the encyclopedia. We urge not to trust unverified information and to use only official sources. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is created by volunteers and volunteers, and is often edited by amateurs. Read how Wikipedia counteracts fakes here.

Russian media and pro-Kremlin telegram channels spread reports that the serial number of the 9M79-1 missile fired at the train station in Kramatorsk on April 8 "clearly indicates that the projectile belongs to Ukraine. The propagandists use footage from an Italian TV channel TG La7 story about the Russian attack on Kramatorsk. StopFake writes that the marking on the 9M79-1 missile means that the missile belongs to the Tochka-U class, and the number Sh91579 can in no way identify the missile as belonging to a Ukrainian military unit. This is a factory marking that was put on all missiles at the Votkinsk Machine-Building Plant, where these missiles were manufactured during the Soviet era. The Tochka-U is currently in service with eight countries. Russian media also say that the Sh915 missiles were already allegedly used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces during the shelling of Alchevsk on February 2, 2015. However, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission at the time did not confirm the use of Tochka-U by the Ukrainian military against Alchevsk. The Russian-controlled militants in Alchevsk were unable to provide the OSCE experts with the missile itself or its wreckage.

On April 10, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Russian troops destroyed launchers of Ukrainian S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, among them one handed over by Slovakia. Russian propaganda was countered by Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Geger in a tweet. He wrote that Ukraine has officially confirmed that the destruction thesis is false. .

Russian propagandists called fake the statements of the Ukrainian side about the blocking and seizure of humanitarian aid for Melitopol by the invaders, attaching photos of white trucks with a red cross allegedly located at Azovstal in Mariupol. StopFake writes that the photos are fake, because according to Mayor Ivan Fedorov, the humanitarian aid was sent by other vehicles.

A delegation of the group visited the occupied village of Rozovka in Zaporizhia region, not Zaporizhia, StopFake writes. Not a single comment from locals in the filmed footage asked them to join the group.

The propaganda channel RT released a recording of a conversation in which foreign journalists allegedly said that a forensic medical expert confirmed that there were no casualties, and local residents spoke positively about the invader. RT did not name the sources of the recording or the media outlet that allegedly received this information, while reports from foreign media outlets that are not anonymous suggest otherwise, writes Stop Fake.

Russian propaganda constantly promotes the message that the Ukrainian military seems to be using drugs. In the last 24 hours alone, Russian resources and telegram channels spread this fake story twice. For example, RIA FAN, owned by "Putin's cook" Prigozhin, posted a video of an unknown person, whom they call a former member of the "25th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade" who surrendered, named Dmitry. He says that he was offered to use "amphetamine," and saw that his commander was using it. At the same time, the RIA FAN story claims that 60% of "AFU fighters fight on drugs" and that they are allegedly delivered to military units by "Novaya Posta". There is no evidence of this - even the man in the video does not say this. Also, everything that the unknown man says in the video is a betrayal of an Apostrof article made public in 2018 - it also featured a "fighter of the Airborne Assault Brigade," but it was anonymous."

Another bottom of propaganda: the channel "Russia 1" decided to "debunk Ukrainian fakes" regarding the deaths of Ukrainians. The channel aired two people wrapping duct tape around a mannequin and stated that this was a fragment of "another production," in which the Ukrainian military seemed to be trying to pass off the "mannequin as a corpse. Russian actress Nadezhda Kolobaeva took it upon herself to refute this propaganda nonsense: she wrote that the video shown by Russia 1 was preparation for the shooting of a Russian film. She also posted a video from the set, where this mannequin is thrown from a crane for an episode about a man who falls out of a window onto a car.

This information is spread in social networks and Russian propaganda media. The reports are accompanied by a video, in which the servicemen brutally detain people. The description says that the video shows the arrest of civilians in the Dnipro region who support Russia. However, this is a fake. As fact checkers from StopFake report, the detention in the video took place in Pavlograd, not in Dnipro. "The SBU special forces detained local thugs who had previously beaten up a territorial defense fighter, as reported by the mayor of Dnipro. The Russian agitprop repeatedly attempts to divert attention from the war crimes of its army, distributing various videos that allegedly bring the brutal treatment of Ukrainian soldiers to the civilian. civilians from Dnipro, allegedly supporting Russia, is not involved," the fact checkers write. Read more.

Such information is spreading on the network. In particular, about the TV presenter Masha Efrosinina. They say that she records videos, in which she accuses Russia of all the crimes that Russian soldiers commit. Efrosinina herself on her page said that all this is a fake, which is spread by people from the entourage of the Russian singer Nikolai Baskov, who previously supported Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

According to Masha Efrosinina, information about paid videos from Ukrainian stars began to appear after Maria published an appeal to Baskov about Bucha and Irpen.

This is the thesis spread by Russian propaganda media. The reports claim that SBU officers were replacing the chlorine storage in the Kharkiv region, namely at the Khimprom enterprise in the town of Pervomaisky. However, this is a fake. As StopFake fact checkers write, there are no chlorine storages at the Khimprom plant in Pervomaisky because it ceased to exist many years ago.

This information is disseminated in Russian propaganda media and telegram channels. In such reports, propagandists refer to the words of Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defense Control Center. They say that mass arrests of citizens are allegedly taking place in Kharkiv, and men are being forcibly taken into the terror defense battalions. Earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defense had already spread fake information about the situation in Kharkiv, more precisely about the so-called "flying death squads. However, this is not true. According to StopFake, nothing of the kind is happening in Kharkiv, which is regularly shelled by Russian troops. Statements by representatives of the Russian Ministry of Defense about life in Kharkiv under martial law are untrue. Neither the reports of local human rights defenders nor the messages on social networks contain information about the "mass terror" that the Ukrainian authorities allegedly organized in the city.