Some Russian media spread a video showing a large-scale fire in Spain with captions stating that Ukrainian refugees were allegedly the cause of it. Ukrainians allegedly wanted to burn the Russian flag, but they set the forest on fire. It is not true.

StopFake fact-checkers found the original video. It is indeed footage of a fire that has been raging in the Spanish provinces for several weeks. The announcer says that there is a possibility of deliberate arson. But there is no mention in the story that it was the Ukrainians who caused the fire. The archive also contains the original video with the news feed at the bottom of the screen. In fact, the credits reported the arrest of a taxi driver for assaulting a passenger and driving while intoxicated. Therefore, the information about the participation of Ukrainians in the arson was added deliberately. Probably to discredit Ukrainians who seek refuge in Spain because of the Russian war in Ukraine.

Information is spread by the Russian media concerning the Ministry of Defense of Russia. Allegedly, in Dnipro, a school and a dormitory are used as cover for Ukrainian military and equipment. Similar reports are being spread about Kryvyi Rih, where the Armed Forces of Ukraine allegedly settled in residential buildings. It is not true.

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.

Photos of two men with Nazi tattoos allegedly depicting Ukrainian refugees in Rijeka (Croatia) are spread on social media. In some posts, the photo serves as a justification for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, it is a fake.

Photos of price tags from stores in the Ternopil and Lviv regions for basic products (buckwheat, eggs, and cabbage) on which the prices are indicated not only in hryvnias but also in zlotys are allegedly being distributed on the network. Because of this, residents allegedly are afraid of joining the regions of Poland, especially because of the draft law on a special status for Polish citizens. It is a fake. These photos have been edited, and the prices are not correct. More details. As for the law on the special status of Polish citizens in Ukraine, the president introduced the relevant draft law to the Verkhovna Rada on July 11 in compliance with the principle of reciprocity of international law. It is a response to the law on assistance to citizens of Ukraine, adopted by Poland in March. There are no provisions of law that would provide for the accession of Ukraine to Poland.

Another historical fake used by Russian propaganda is the myth that Ukrainians never lived in the Black Sea region. It is part of the great myth about "originally Russian lands," which Russia allegedly went to "return to itself," restoring "historical justice."

As the history of the last 30 years shows, Russia started wars everywhere without using historical myths - for example, in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Syria. Propaganda did not need an explanation about "Russian peace" or "liberation of suffering peoples" from the "Nazis." But to explain the invasion of Ukraine since 2014, propaganda uses all sorts of fakes to prove its own "right" to kill Ukrainians. Sometimes they are directly opposite. In some cases, propaganda proves that Ukrainians do not exist at all; in others - they exist but "did not live" in certain territories and therefore do not have the right to them.

One of these fakes - that Ukrainians never lived in Odesa - was analyzed in detail by StopFake.

Images with data on the national composition of Odesa in 1894 are being distributed on social networks. According to these data, Russians, Jews, Poles, Germans, Greeks, and French lived in Odesa then. As the publication writes, the data indicated in the picture are more or less comparable with the data of the Odesa population census of 1892. His results were published two years later, in 1894. At that time, 336,000 people lived in Odesa. But, as the researchers explain, the population distribution took place according to many parameters, such as native language, religion, and whether the resident was: a Russian citizen or a foreigner. At the same time, people were not asked about their nationality; however, later census, held in 1897, there were statistics by nationality - and in the Kherson province, which included Odesa, 1,462,039 Ukrainians lived, which was 53.5% of the population of the region.

Here, read more about population censuses and historical data about Ukrainians in Odesa and Kherson regions.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has spread another fake: it seems that Ukraine is shelling the Zaporizhzhia NPP, and because of this threatens Europe with an industrial disaster.

"With maniacal tenacity, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are shelling the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the largest in Europe, not caring about its preservation and violating the resolution and decision of the IAEA general conference. It is obvious that the Ukrainian side is deliberately leading the case to a large-scale industrial disaster. We see that the USA and its European allies are completely satisfied with this," said the representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ivan Nechaev.

It is another accusation that has no evidence. On the contrary, it is the troops of the Russian Federation that are creating the prerequisites for an industrial disaster at the nuclear power plant by bringing heavy weapons to the territory of the station. StopFake writes about it.

Thus, on July 21, the Energoatom company reported that the Russian occupiers brought at least 14 units of heavy military equipment with ammunition, as well as weapons and explosives to the engine room of the 1st power unit of the Zaporizhzhia NPP. The company said that an arsenal of imported heavy equipment with all ammunition is located next to the equipment that ensures the operation of the turbogenerator - and the use of the weapons could lead to an explosion at the station. Earlier, Energoatom, which controls all operating nuclear plants in the country, has repeatedly stated that Russian forces are turning the ZNPP into a military base and using it as a shield. In addition, the occupiers constantly capture local workers, and there is evidence of their torture. Read more about the situation at the ZNPP here.

In the German segment of Facebook, an image is shared: "Shocking survey: 11 million Germans will fight for Russia and Putin against NATO in case of war!" The posts with this image reported that the German channel ARD conducted such a survey.

It's a fake: German fact-checkers from Correctiv contacted the broadcaster, and ARD denied ever conducting such a survey.

The German segment of Facebook regularly spread fakes discrediting Ukraine, the Armed Forces, and slandering Ukrainian refugees in Germany.

At the same time, Russian publications spread the news that it is claimed that three companies - Vanguard, Blackrock, and Blackstone, the main capital of which belongs to American funds, bought 17 million hectares of agricultural land in Ukraine. But it is a fake.

All Russian publications refer to the news of an unknown Australian site called Australiannationalreview.com, which does not provide any evidence to prove these claims. The news on the Australian website refers to material on the Auckland Institute, which is devoted to changes in legislation in Ukraine regarding the sale of agricultural land. However, in the report, there is no information about any of the three companies that allegedly bought a third of the land in Ukraine. Moreover, the material of the Auckland Institute appeared on August 6, 2021, and already the news with the names of these three campaigns and the thesis about "a third of the land sold" was published on May 27, 2022, on the Australian website. But it was reprinted in the Russian mass media only on July 26.

According to the State Service for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre write StopFake, 0.26 million hectares were sold in Ukraine during the year of operation of the land market. This figure is about 0.8% of the area of ​​agricultural land (32.6 million hectares) entered into the geocadastre. Thus, the data on 17 million hectares operated by Kremlin propagandists is 65 times greater than the area of ​​agricultural land actually sold in Ukraine.

Such information is spread on social networks, adding an alleged fight video. In the messages to the video, they add that Polish women recently fought with Ukrainian refugees. However, it is not true. According to VoxCheck, a reverse TinEye search shows that the video appeared online in 2016 on the Polish website wykop.pl.

According to several Polish media, the fight took place at the beginning of July in the Polish resort town of Władysławowo and gained wide publicity. It recorded the participation of three girls and several men who tried to separate them. The exact cause of the fight is unknown. In the comments under the video, it is noted that such cases are often associated with excessive alcohol consumption and frequently occur at summer parties.

There is no mention of the nationality of the participants, so there is no reason to talk about a conflict between Poles and refugees from Ukraine either. It is not the first time Russian propaganda has spread fakes about refugees from Ukraine in various states that accepted them because of the war. In this way, the propaganda seeks to discredit the refugees from Ukraine themselves and to create the appearance that the attitude towards Ukrainians is deteriorating in the countries that receive them.

Such information is distributed in the Georgian segment of social networks in Russian. For example, during registration in Poland, Ukrainian refugees fill out a questionnaire where they are forced to write that Stepan Bandera is a terrorist. The messages are accompanied by an alleged photo of the questionnaire and claim that if a person does not recognize Bandera as a terrorist, he will not receive the special identification number in Poland.

In fact, the information about Ukrainian refugees in Poland receiving an identification number and signing a statement that Stepan Bandera is a terrorist, and Ukrainian nationalists are responsible for the Volyn tragedy is fake.

According to fact-checkers from Myth Detector, the document published on social networks is fabricated, and the authentic version of the document is available on the official website of the Polish government. In the original version of the questionnaire, there are no questions about Bandera and the Volyn tragedy. 

Anonymous Telegram channels spread information about this; later, it also appeared on the pages of Kremlin propaganda media. The authors illustrated such news with alleged photos of the Libyans and their Ukrainian passports, which they allegedly received.

The reports also said that the terrorists could migrate to Poland with these documents. In fact, Libyan terrorists did not obtain the passports of Ukrainian citizens and did not try to use these documents to leave for Poland. As StopFake writes, the footage of the detention was taken long before the alleged arrest, and the image of the "detainee's" passport was taken from the Internet and processed in a photo editor. 

This thesis is actively spread by the Russian propaganda media, allegedly referring to information in the Turkish media. However, it is not true. The company that manufactures drones has refused to cooperate with Russia. According to the Center for Combating Disinformation, some Turkish media reported that Russia and the United Arab Emirates want to cooperate with Baykar to produce Bayraktar drones. According to the Center, Russian propaganda claims that the issue of cooperation between Russia and the company has already been resolved.

Although in reality, the Turkish media write that, despite the request of the Russian side, the CEO of Baykar Makina Haluk Bayraktar categorically refused the aggressor and stated that the Turkish "Bayraktar TB2 will never be sold to Russia." At the same time, cooperation with Ukraine continues.

By spreading such theses, Russian propaganda seeks to convince the world that the number of its partners and support is constantly growing. Thereby allegedly demonstrating that the companies that supported Ukraine in this war for a long time will now support Russia.

Russian mass media and social networks spread information that Oxford University decided to cancel all diplomas issued to the children and close relatives of Russian officials since 2014. This fake was promoted as part of a message about Russophobia in Europe.

The Russian mass media spread the information that the temporarily occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region has allegedly already "established international contacts" regarding the collaborator and protégé of the Russian authorities, Volodymyr Rogov. Allegedly, the occupiers began receiving "appeals from members of parliament in Germany, Spain, France, Greece."

The cover of the cartoon magazine, on which Great Britain "spits out" Boris Johnson and Zelensky, was used by anonymous Telegram channels for numerous manipulations. However, such a cover does not exist.

The fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project refuted the information. The fake cover of the magazine states that the issue was published on July 9, 2022. The Charlie Hebdo website has an archive of all magazine covers. The cover with the caricature, which Facebook users share, is not on this page. In the section with pictures published in the magazine and on the official Twitter account, there is also no cartoon with Johnson and Zelensky. It is unknown who the author of this caricature is, but it has nothing to do with the magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Cartoons allegedly published in foreign magazines are used by Russian propaganda to ridicule and devalue partnership relations between Ukraine and foreign countries.

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.

Russian media spread information that two battalions of the Polish army allegedly arrived in Ukraine and were sent to Pavlograd (Dnipropetrovsk region). Reports say that these Polish battalions were destroyed on the territory of Ukraine. However, it is not true.

Polish regular troops do not take part in Russia's war against Ukraine. In a comment to the Polish publication Konkret24, the General Staff of the Polish Army denied information about the participation of Polish battalions in the war on the territory of Ukraine, calling such reports another fake of systematic Russian propaganda. Poles can fight in Ukraine as part of the International Legion, which is subordinate to the Armed Forces. Therefore, Poles or any military personnel with foreign citizenship who fight in this legion are Ukrainian military personnel. More details. 

Russian propaganda media and anonymous Telegram channels write about this. The British allegedly are beginning to "see through" the chaos Ukrainians are creating at airports and have introduced fines for plagiarism of 5,000 pounds.

The reports add that allegedly blue-yellow posters were specially installed to inform and guarantee to draw the attention of Ukrainians. It is a fake.

Airports in Great Britain do not conduct an information campaign to warn Ukrainians about fines for violating the rules. StopFake fact-checkers checked these "warning" posters and found a video showing a completely different text of such posters. In fact, they inform Ukrainians in three languages ​​about how to get to the aid stations at the airport. The text on the banner was edited in a photo editor.

The British government has issued a special handbook for Ukrainian refugees. It does not contain any information about special fines for Ukrainians of 5,000 pounds (about 220,000 hryvnias) for breaking the rules of conduct.

In this way, Russian propaganda is again trying to discredit Ukrainian refugees, to accuse them of being ungrateful to foreign citizens who help. 

The Russian media report it concerning the press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Maria Zakharova. The missiles allegedly destroyed the warehouse of Harpoon anti-ship missiles provided by the USA and knocked out the production facilities of the Ukrainian warship repair enterprise and the warship. It is not true.

On July 22, in Istanbul, Ukraine, Turkey, the UN signed an agreement concerning unblocking ports and exporting Ukrainian grain. Russia signed a mirror agreement with Turkey and the UN. All parties have undertaken obligations on the world stage to ensure the safe movement of Ukrainian grain and related products to world markets.

The next day, July 23, the Russian army hit the port of Odesa, where grain intended for export was located, with four Kalibr missiles. Anti-aircraft defense forces shot down two missiles. Two rockets hit the infrastructure of the port - the pumping station. The shock wave damaged the houses around the port. The grain storage itself was not hit.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the strikes by the Russian military on the Ukrainian port in Odesa.

After the missile strike, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar noted that he had spoken with the Russian side. They told him they were allegedly not involved in the missile strike and were "investigating the issue."

Meanwhile, on July 23, anonymous Telegram channels were already spreading different versions of the causes and consequences of the attack on the port in Odesa:

1) if Russia has nothing to do with the attack, then it may be that the Armed Forces of Ukraine themselves loaded the planes with anti-aircraft missiles for provocation;

2) it flew over the Zavodska harbor, where there are Ukrainian military boats, not grain;

3) Ukrainian military air defenses were stationed in the port - this was the target of the shelling, so "the topic of grain can be closed." Russia has never once admitted its crime, but every time it invents fakes, why does it massively hit Ukraine with missiles.

Pro-Kremlin mass media report it concerning Russian security forces. Allegedly, the detainees will be sent to the so-called filtration camps for a further detailed inspection by the SSU. In turn, the SSU in Mykolaiv will look for people who have ties to Russia and are not loyal to the Kyiv regime. It is not true.

In fact, the Russians were alarmed by the head of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration, Vitaly Kim, who appealed to the people to help save the Mykolaiv Region from shelling and promised a reward for information about the fire adjusters. Kim called to provide information on persons who, in your opinion, corrected the fire of the occupier, the Russian military, and helped them. "After a detailed check and confirmation of the provided information, you will receive a reward of $100," noted Vitaly Kim.

The SSU is really working to detain enemy agents who correct missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, not just someone's friends, and they face up to 15 years in prison, not the so-called filtration camps that the Russians opened in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine and where Ukrainian citizens are detained which threaten Russian control over Ukraine.

The Russian occupiers and collaborators spread such a fake in Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia region. Allegedly, to obtain a certificate of education, it will be necessary to go to the controlled territory to take exams. It is not true. "In Ukraine, all children are guaranteed free education. And future graduates will receive their documents already in free Melitopol by the Law of Ukraine "On Education," — reports the Department of Education of the Melitopol City Council.

In the Telegram chat "Shatskyi Tereveni," they spread the message about the beginning of the attack by the Russians from Belarus "in the morning." It is advised to collect all important things and prepare for the absence of electricity and the Internet.

Reports of military activity in neighboring Belarus have become more frequent since the start of military training near the border of the Volyn and Rivne regions was announced.

Currently, there are no facts about an attack from Belarus. Such messages are most likely sent to sow panic and destabilize the situation, write the fact-checkers of the "Rayon. Shatsk."

Several things indicate that a message is fake. For example, "in the morning" - but there is no exact date on which morning it will happen.

Later, a message appeared: "Let it not happen, but it is better to prepare." A seemingly unobtrusive message, however, makes the reader tense up. Many questions and the source of information - "Oleg, a journalist from Stryi, who was transferred from the USA."

The Russian mass media disseminate information concerning the "Zaporizhzhia government" (separatist Volodymyr Rogov). Allegedly, children are taken away because they do not finish their meal or eat portions too quickly, because of an extreme emotional attachment to their parents, and because the mother shouts loudly at the child. It seems that such cases occur most often in Germany.

In Zaporizhzhia Region, since the beginning of the full-scale war, power has been represented by the regional military administration, whose head is Oleksandr Starukh. He did not make any statement about the removal of children from refugees.

Volodymyr Rogov is a separatist and collaborator who declared himself the so-called mayor of temporarily occupied Melitopol. The National Police opened a criminal case against him. On July 21, the European Union imposed sanctions on Rogov.

Such fakes are spread so that mothers with children do not dare to flee from the war to Western countries, where they are actually provided with social assistance and help children adapt.

Viber chats spread the old fake about "total wiretapping of phones throughout the country" and "full monitoring of social networks." Now the SSU allegedly reports this, writes the Situation Center of the city of Dnipro. It is an old fake that has been circulating periodically since at least 2017. Previously, it was published only in Russian. On February 24, 2022, the day of Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine, the fake news that phone calls, as well as messages and calls on Whatsapp, Twitter, and Facebook, will be recorded from February 25, was translated into Ukrainian and began to spread on Ukrainian social networks.