A video is being circulated on social networks, which claims that in August 2024, the President of Ukraine signed a bill providing for the payment of 100 thousand hryvnia to the military.

VoxCheck analysts confirmed that the video is not real. It was created using AI tools where they can superimpose a distinctive voice onto the video.

In 2023, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine did indeed consider bill No. 9342, according to which military personnel performing combat missions near the front line should be paid an additional monthly remuneration of 30-100 thousand UAH. The President of Ukraine signed this bill back in June 2023.

Anonymous Telegram channels are distributing a photo of order No. 413 allegedly from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine for July 29, 2024, which orders the invalidation of decisions by military medical commissions. It is about decisions by the military medical commissions made after 2022 in the Kyiv, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia and Odesa regions. A screenshot of the “order” is added to the publications.

VoxCheck analysts explained that such an order from the Ministry of Defense simply does not exist; it was forged.

For example, the Ministry of Defense did not publish such orders on the official website. The Ministry of Defense page contains only one order No. 413 for 2020, and it does not concern the decisions of the Military medical commissions.

The so-called document was forged, as indicated by numerous errors. For example, the fakers wrote the wrong date, document number, and added extra punctuation marks in the sentence - “Regulations on the Ministry of Defense (Ukraine, approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated October 19, 2016 ME 730)”.

Or else, in the first paragraph of the order they wrote “regional”  not in Ukrainian, and in the second paragraph they incorrectly used a comma:  “...documentation, issued during the same period”.

A photo of what appears to be an announcement on the wall of the Sumy Regional Clinical Hospital is being circulated online. It states that the medical institution urgently needs donor blood for the wounded in the Kursk Region. A photo of the “announcement” is added to the publications.

“The need for blood is so acute that it is taken 24 hours a day. This is how Zelenskyi's PR campaigns end”, the propagandists comment.

VoxCheck analysts analyzed the case and found out that the propagandists had faked the photo by editing it in a photo editor. And the original photo shows the daily schedule for patients in the otolaryngology department.

There was no information about the urgent need for donor blood for the wounded in the Kursk region on the official website of the Sumy Regional Clinical Hospital or its social networks. But, for example, on August 6 and August 13, the DonorUA organization announced the need for donor blood in different regions, but Sumy region was not among them.

In addition, the Sumy Regional Clinical Hospital is not on the list of medical institutions accredited to collect donor blood. In Sumy, only the Sumy Regional Blood Service Center does this.

Propagandists have been systematically spreading fakes and manipulations on the topic of an alleged blood shortage in Ukraine. In this way, the authors of the messages are trying to convince that everything is bad in Ukraine and that there are many wounded who are not receiving adequate care because “there is not enough blood”.  We managed to refute several fakes on this topic. For example, one of the fakes said that Ukraine is banning all foreign citizens from becoming blood donors. We also checked the authenticity of a message on social networks about a Ukrainian woman abandoning her husband because he was “transfused with Muscovite blood”.

Pro-Kremlin media are distributing a screenshot of news allegedly from Ukrainska Pravda about the cancellation of school certificates and higher education diplomas for men who have not updated their data in the Territorial centers of procurement and social support. These changes allegedly occurred in accordance with a Cabinet of Ministers resolution. 

But VoxCheck fact-checkers took up this case and found out that it was a fake photo. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine did not issue a resolution with such content. The fakers forged a screenshot of the Ukrainska Pravda article, replacing the title and illustration of the original material.

There is no corresponding article on the website or in social networks of Ukrainska Pravda. At the same time, the screenshot indicates the time and date of publication of the “news” - August 14, 15:11. Currently, the publication has published an article by the author Valentyna Romanenko under the title “The General Staff called on Ukrainians and foreigners not to enter combat zones without permission”. It did not talk about the cancellation of certificates.

Propagandists have recently started to fake stories and materials from well-known media outlets, using their design elements to create the effect of recognition and trust in one of the quality media outlets. For example, we recently reported that anonymous people were spreading a fake story from the supposedly French publication Le Figaro, which spoke about a “Ukrainian refugee-murderer”.

Anonymous Telegram channels are spreading a supposedly Bloomberg video story. It says that military analyst and retired general Bradley Gerik gave an interview for a podcast to Military.com: there he allegedly expressed the opinion that the results achieved in the Kursk region are “insignificant” and not worth the large material and human losses suffered by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in this operation.

VoxCheck analysts explained that Bloomberg did not publish a similar story. Moreover, there is no such video on the official website of the publication, nor on the media's pages on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (X), TikTok and YouTube.

At the same time, retired General Bradley Gerik did not comment on the operation, all his quotes are made up. He never gave comments on the Military.com podcast. Although Military.com covered the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk, it did not refer to this analyst. The online publication believes that the operation in Kursk proved “Ukraine's ability to seize the initiative” and raised the morale of the fighters.

Read on Censor.NET: The US is allegedly involved in the operation in the Kursk region.

Russian telegram channels are spreading a message with a video in which the media United 24 allegedly claims that the Ukrainian army intercepted a radio conversation in which a Russian commander warns his soldiers that they can only eat the food they brought with them. The video notes that there have been mass cases of fatal poisoning among Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk direction after they allegedly stole and ate food from local supermarkets.

But this is a fake. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are not looting in the Kursk region, unlike the Russian army and locals, who have been repeatedly seen robbing stores. We checked the United 24 website, as well as their social media pages, and did not find the news quoted by the propagandists. In addition, the fakeness of the message is indicated by the use of videos from Russian Telegram channels in the background, in which Ukrainian soldiers allegedly steal food en masse from Kursk stores and supermarkets.

The main goal of this fake is to spread messages about marginalization and looting among the military defense forces of Ukraine. In this way, the propagandists want to discredit the Ukrainian army, accuse it of crimes against the civilian population, and also hide their own. In addition, such news should convince Ukrainians that the operation in the Kursk direction is a failure for Ukraine, primarily due to the alleged presence of active public resistance among Russians.

Propagandists are spreading information on social networks that massive missile strikes on the Rivne NPP have damaged all power units and significantly increased radiation levels. In particular, rumors are being spread that the radiation background in the area of the NPP allegedly exceeds permissible levels by many times. However, this is a fake.

This was noted by specialists from the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. In particular, the photo of the fire, actively spreading on the Internet, was taken during a fire at a warehouse in Tashkent in 2023, and not at the Rivne NPP. This was confirmed by journalists from the Raion.Varash publication, who conducted their own investigation. In addition, National Atomic Power Generating Company Energoatom, the Ukrainian company responsible for nuclear energy, officially denied these rumors. They confirmed that no emergency situations occurred at the Rivne NPP, and all nuclear units are operating normally, without exceeding the radiation background.

The dissemination of such fakes serves to sow panic among the population, cause fear and destabilize the situation in Ukraine. Such fakes are used by the enemy to reduce the morale of Ukrainians, increase social tension and undermine trust in official sources of information.

Propagandists are spreading information on anonymous Telegram channels that a brand with a trident was allegedly found among the abandoned items at an abandoned Ukrainian military stronghold. According to them, the Ukrainian military uses it to brand civilians. However, this is fake.

It was brought to the attention of specialists from the Center for Countering Disinformation. They found out that this fake has no basis and is an attempt to discredit the Ukrainian army, creating an image of Ukrainian soldiers as cruel executioners. Such statements are part of a large-scale disinformation campaign aimed at inciting hatred towards Ukrainians and justifying aggression from Russia.

This fake is also spread to manipulate emotions and increase hostility towards Ukraine. In addition, propagandists want to create the illusion that Ukrainian troops are not only fighting against Russian troops, but also allegedly pose a threat to the civilian population. Such propaganda is aimed at causing fear and hatred among Russians, increasing support for Russia's military actions and demoralizing Ukrainian society.

In addition, this fake can be used to try to influence the international community by portraying Ukraine as an aggressor, allegedly resorting to brutal methods of war. However, these claims are unfounded, because the Ukrainian military adheres to international norms of warfare. The Ukrainian armed forces do not use and have never used such methods.

Propagandists are distributing a photo of an “order” allegedly issued by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine on reducing the number of budget places for men of draft age on anonymous Telegram channels with pro-Russian rhetoric. They claim that the reason for this decision is the need to replenish the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, this document is fake.

It was brought to the attention of specialists from the BAHMUT.IN.UA page and the Center for Counteracting Disinformation. They found out that on the official website of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine there is not a single order providing for a reduction in the number of budget places for military-liable men aged 18 to 25 years. As of August 19, there is only a regulatory legal act “On the conditions and procedure for holding the all-Ukrainian competition Teacher of the Year - 2025”. In addition, order No. 498 was already issued on May 5, 2021 and concerns issues of holding the External Independent Evaluation in 2022.

The Decree of the President of Ukraine on general mobilization for 2022 cannot be the basis for reducing the number of budget places for men of draft age. When entering any university in Ukraine, budget places are not distributed by gender or age. In 2024, anyone who scored more than 130 points (or 150 points for some specialties) of The national multi-subject test could apply for education at public expense. Also, applicants to art and sports specialties passed a creative competition, which had a greater influence on the competition score than The national multi-subject test - 60%.

Given the high demand among military-liable men for admission to universities, the Ministry of Education and Science has taken a different approach. In particular, for those entering postgraduate studies, the Ministry of Education and Science has increased the number of budget places, canceling the contractual full-time form of study, which previously provided a deferment from mobilization.

By spreading a fake order, Russian propaganda is once again trying to arouse feelings of indignation and injustice among Ukrainians. Studying at public expense is the right of every Ukrainian man and woman who has fulfilled all the conditions for joining and passed the rating list. Propagandists also want to disrupt mobilization in the country and discredit this process.

A photo is being circulated on social networks, which is allegedly part of an advertising campaign for KharkivPride, calling on people to join the future Pride coming up in September.

The ad supposedly writes: “It’s better for the AFU to be a gay than a straight draft dodger. Take part in Pride! The country is proud of you”.

At the same time, propagandists ridicule representatives of the LGBTQIA community, saying that “homosexual soldiers” simply do not exist.

Firstly, there is no such announcement from KharkivPride. It is impossible to see such an image on their social media pages. And with the help of a reverse search on Google, it was possible to establish that this photo was published only on anonymous telegram channels.

Homophobia is one of the signs of Russian society, which it militantly defends. In particular, according to Putin, a full-scale invasion should supposedly become a means of protecting traditional values from Western norms that directly lead to degradation and degeneration, since they “contradict human nature”. The Russian government has fueled hatred of the LGBTQIA community, notably by passing a law in 2013 banning so-called homosexual propaganda. Later, at the end of 2022, Putin signed a package of laws prohibiting “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” and “propaganda of gender reassignment and pedophilia”. Thus, a legislative initiative banned “LGBT propaganda” in any goods sold in Russia.

Read also: How Russian propaganda is trying to use LGBTQIA issues in the context of the war against Ukraine

In fact, Moscow shows that belonging to the LGBTQIA community is considered something unacceptable. Discrediting a person; or why a person is considered “wrong”. With the help of such messages, propagandists ridicule and humiliate the inhabitants of Europe. For example, Russian propaganda systematically discredits European officials, all of whom are “gays and lesbians”. Allegedly, homosexual orientation is a disadvantage and such a person cannot occupy high positions, be popular, etc.

Consumers of propaganda may be under the false impression that everything related to LGBT people is negative although homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality.

Anonymous telegrams are distributing photos of the so-called draft decision of the Sumy District Council on the inclusion of the Russian city of Sudzha and the Sudzha district into the Sumy district of the region of the same name in Ukraine. The document states that a referendum and elections will be held in the Sudzha district.

But VoxCheck specialists established that on August 8 (as indicated in the document) the Sumy District Council did not hold the 29th session, at which they allegedly decided to annex the Russian city and region to Ukraine. The press service of the district council told fact-checkers that the document was fake.

Also on its Facebook page, the Sumy District Council reported that the document was a fake. “The Sumy district council is not considering the decision to include the city of Sudzha and the Sudzha district of the Russian Federation into the Sumy district of the Sumy region”, the message stated.

Actually, Ukraine does not violate international law and does not annex the territories of neighboring states. All actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the territory of modern Russia do not go beyond the bounds of the Geneva Conventions and the rules of war. In contrast to Russia, which has been occupying Ukrainian territory since 2014 and holding pseudo-referendums.

In fact, fictitious referendums in temporarily occupied territories are not the expression of the will of Ukrainians, but indicate Russia’s desire to give legitimacy to its criminal actions. In particular, the seizure of Ukrainian regions. This is not a legitimate vote at all. Its results, in addition to Russia itself, are recognized by its “sister states”, such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. That is, this is the occupation of foreign territories by Moscow.

Read also the Newspeak section: “new regions of Russia”

On anonymous telegram channels they write that the former commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and now the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the UK, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, seems to be announcing a plan to annex the Kursk region to Ukraine. After this, according to him, it is possible to beat deeper with Western weapons on Russian territory. A video is added to the publications in which Zaluzhnyi allegedly talks about this.

Fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project found out that the original source of the video was a humorous telegram channel, and pro-Kremlin resources began to distribute the video as real and official news. Moreover, the video material was created using artificial intelligence technologies.

Moreover, neither Ukrainian nor foreign media wrote about such plans or distributed the video with Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Ukrainian troops broke through the Russian border in the Sumy region on Tuesday, August 6. Already on August 12, President Zelenskyi for the first time directly wrote that Ukraine was conducting an operation in the Kursk region of Russia. Back on August 12, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that Ukraine controls almost 1,000 km of Kursk region. As of August 13, it became known that 74 settlements in Russia are under Ukrainian control.

Read on Censor.NET: The United States seems to be involved in the operation in the Kursk region

Pro-Russian telegram channels are disseminating information that on the website of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi, residents of Zaporizhzhia have registered an electronic petition for the “opening of anti-radiation shelters”. The text of the appeal states that there are such shelters in the city, but it is supposedly impossible to get into them if you do not know the “right” people. Propagandists add a screenshot of the petition as “proof”.

In fact, such treatment does not exist. One can verify this by checking the petition, a screenshot of which is being distributed by propagandists on the electronic petitions website. Thus, on the website of the President of Ukraine there is no appeal under number 22/215b442-eп. Moreover, it could not exist, since the petition number contains an extra letter “b” in the middle. If one removes the unnecessary things, the petition numbered No. 22/215442-eп really exists, but its topic is different, and it is dated January 11, 2024.

The Center for Countering Disinformation also stated that this is a fake. The Russians once again created a fake petition, probably with the help of a graphic editor, and passed it off as real. For example, a little earlier we recorded misinformation about the alleged existence of a petition to name the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces after Iryna Farion.

Russian resources disseminated information that Ukrposhta allegedly presented a stamp called ‘On your knees before Ukraine!’ depicting Russian prisoners of war in the Kursk region. As evidence, the propagandists cited a corresponding screenshot from the company’s page on the X social network.

In fact, Ukrposhta did not issue stamps about the Kursk operation, they wrote in the StopFake project. In the original post on social network X, the company’s SMM manager asks: “Yes, who did this?”, thereby making it clear that they did not create such a brand. In the Ukrainian information space, the Ukrposhta publication was perceived as a joke (since it was one), but Russian propagandists took this message seriously.

There is no such product in the “Wartime Postage Stamps” section on the Ukrposhta website. Alternatively, it could be a fake created in a photo editor. Or someone who actually ordered such a stamp using the “Own Stamp” service, which allows you to order postal products - stamps, envelopes, postcards with your own design for personal use.

Recently, a similar situation occurred with a stamp dedicated to Iryna Farion, who was killed on July 19, 2024. A number of Russian and Ukrainian media spread the news about the release of such a stamp, but later representatives of Ukrposhta clarified that the products were ordered by the relatives of the deceased as part of the ‘Own Brand’ project.

Previously, we analyzed a fake, they say, Ukrposhta issued a stamp with a veteran of the Waffen SS Galicia division Yaroslav Hunko.

Pro-Russian telegram channels claim that Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers carried out a chemical attack in the Kursk region due to the “impossibility of breaking through” Russian defenses. As propagandists write, the Ukrainian military used chemical weapons against Russian positions, violating international law.

However, this is another Russian fake, according to the Center for Countering Disinformation. Propagandists do not provide any real evidence indicating the veracity of this information. In addition, Ukraine is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention and strictly complies with its international obligations on the non-use and non-proliferation of chemical weapons. This fact has been repeatedly confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), operating under the auspices of the UN.

At the same time, it is the Russian so-called “military correspondents” (the same propagandists) who from time to time distribute videos showing the use of chemical weapons by Russian troops against Ukrainian positions, which is a war crime and an outright violation of the laws of war.

Such fakes are part of the Kremlin’s strategy regarding the information response to the events in the Kursk region. The head of the center, an officer of the Ukrainian Defense Forces, Andrii Kovalenko, spoke about this earlier.

Pro-Russian telegram channels, with reference to the head of the occupation administration of the Kherson region - collaborator Volodymyr Saldo - are spreading reports about an alleged outbreak of a bacterial infection in Kherson. Propagandists add that the infection was caused by the contamination of the Dnipro with the bodies of Ukrainian military personnel and the failure of treatment facilities. The population of “areas controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces” is allegedly under threat.

However, after verifying information in the Kherson Regional Military Administration about the sanitary and epidemic situation in the city, the Center for Countering Disinformation reported that no outbreaks of infections were recorded, and the epidemic situation was normal.

Also recently, a daily study of sanitary water indicators was carried out in the Chornobaiv community of the Cherkasy region. However, even there, the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection did not find dangerous deviations from the norms, the Center adds.

With this stuffing, the Russians are once again trying to sow panic among the residents of the Kherson region and discredit the military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, whose dead bodies are the cause of the pollution of the Dnipro and, accordingly, the infection itself.

Propagandists are spreading information on social networks that mobile crematoriums made in Sweden and Italy have allegedly appeared in Sumy. They say that the Ukrainian authorities plan to use them to destroy thousands of bodies of dead soldiers in the Kursk region. However, this is fake.

This was pointed out by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. Its experts found out that it is Russia that is actively using mobile crematoriums and found numerous evidence of this. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, as of April 2022, 13 mobile crematoria were operating in temporarily occupied Mariupol to destroy the bodies of dead civilians. The use of such crematoria was also recorded in the Chernihiv region and Novoaidar, Luhansk region.

This fake is part of a constant disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Propagandists have been spreading similar messages regularly since the start of the full-scale invasion. Already in September 2023, they were spreading similar disinformation about the alleged “delivery” of 200 mobile crematoria from Germany, which indicates the systematic use of this topic to create fear and mistrust in society.

Such stories are aimed at creating panic and undermining trust in the Ukrainian authorities and military. Propagandists are trying to convince Ukrainians and the international community that Ukraine is allegedly hiding its losses and is ready to take extreme measures to keep this a secret. It also diverts attention from the crimes that Russia itself is committing, in particular the use of crematoria to hide its crimes in the occupied territories.

Propagandists began spreading messages on social networks that after a large fire on the night of August 20 in the Ternopil region, radiation levels in the air and water increased significantly. But the information provided is false.

The Center for Strategic Communications warned about this new fake. After a massive attack by Russia on the territory of Ukraine, on the night of August 20, a fire actually broke out at one of the industrial facilities in Ternopil. It was caused by the enemy getting into one of the containers where fuel and lubricants were stored. The head of the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Ternopil region, Viktor Maslei, announced this at a briefing at the Military Regional Administration. During the same briefing, it became known that after measurements and analysis of air in 7 points of the residential area of Ternopil, no excess concentrations of combustion products CO2 and chlorine-containing substances were detected.

It was at this time that propagandists began publishing videos on social networks in which the Ukrainian military allegedly took measurements of radiation in the air of the city. Subsequently, the information about the alleged increase in radiation levels in the region was denied by the mayor of Ternopil, Serhii Nadal.

The main goal of such fakes is to distract Russia from responsibility for its crimes, as well as to spread panic and fear among the Ukrainian population. In addition, in this way, Russian propaganda is trying to build distrust among Ukrainians in the official authorities as a source of truthful information.

Russian propaganda is distributing a video on anonymous telegram channels with content in a foreign language, in which a funeral cortege On the Shield with the body of a Ukrainian military man passes through a Ukrainian city. In the video, an order is allegedly heard from a loudspeaker for people to kneel before the hero who died in the Kursk region, otherwise people will be fined for disobeying the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, in reality this information is fake.

This was reported by fact-checkers of the Bez Brekhni (No Lies) project. The video was actually filmed in Ukraine, namely in the Ternopil region, because at the 13th second a table with the name of the street Ruska, 17 appears in the frame. Also, the On the Shield campaign is truly a humanitarian project of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, within the framework of which volunteers help transport the bodies of fallen military personnel. However, the original video was published on the YouTube channel of a local website long before the operation in the Kursk region - on July 17. There is not a single voice notification or orders for citizens. Only sirens and emergency signals can be heard. The military man who was being transported by the motorcade, Valentyn Iliin, died on July 13, 2024 and was not involved in the operation in the Kursk direction.

By publishing such messages, Russian propaganda is trying with all its might not only to spread the message about the supposedly large losses of Ukraine during the attack on the Kursk region, but also to create the effect of hostility and confrontation between the military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the civilian population. In addition, propagandists are also making attempts to depopulate the civilians of Ukraine during the war, presenting them as “slaves” for bending the knee in front of the motorcade. But in fact, the tradition of honoring fallen soldiers on their knees is one of the important parts of the farewell memorial service, as well as a spontaneous gesture of gratitude to the defenders who laid down their lives for Ukraine. This is how Ukrainians honored their fallen heroes at the beginning of the ATO in 2014.

Propagandists are distributing on anonymous telegram channels an image of a postcard on which First Lady Olena Zelenska allegedly calls on Ukrainian women to join the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In fact, this postcard is another fiction.

This was brought to the attention of specialists from the Center for Countering Disinformation, as well as the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. They found out that there were no such materials either on the official websites of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine or on the department’s pages on social networks. Also, this information is not available on the official resources of the Olena Zelenska Foundation.

The purpose of this fake is to discredit the mobilization campaign in Ukraine and Olena Zelenska personally in order to undermine trust in the Ukrainian authorities and cause negative sentiment in society. Propagandists are trying to create the idea that mobilization is so critical that even the First Lady is allegedly involved in calls to join the army. In addition, this is an attempt by Russian propaganda to manipulate Olena Zelenska’s interview with the British media platforms Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, where she commented on proposals to cede territories for the sake of peace and spoke about new war crimes by the Russians. Propagandists use such manipulations to further distort her words and influence public sentiment both in Ukraine and abroad.

Propagandists are distributing information on the social network X, allegedly near one of the hospitals in the city of Sumy, an advertisement was noticed in which the administration is looking for trucks with refrigerators for transporting “oversized cargo”. According to propagandists, these trucks will be used to transport the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers, who “continue to die en masse during attempts by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to attack the Kursk region”. But in fact this ad is fake.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security spoke about this on the telegram channel. Firstly, the contact phone number with the name Dmytro indicated in these advertisements actually belongs to a girl named Daria, Ukrinform fact-checkers have established. Secondly, the photo of the truck posted in the ad was indeed previously published on the website of an online store in Russia. Propagandists simply used ready-made illustrations for a fake ad.

This fake is part of the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign against the actions of the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the Kursk region. His goal is to discredit the Ukrainian army, spread the message that the operation in the Kursk region is supposedly an absolute failure for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and also to hide the losses and failures of Russia itself on the battlefield.

A photo of the poster is being circulated online and claims that it belongs to the advertising campaigns of the Ministry of Defense. The poster depicts a motorcyclist and a call to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine to help the country win.

“In Ukraine, motorcyclists are offered to immediately be sent to the front. Well thought out”, the propagandists write.

VoxCheck specialists were able to analyze the case and establish that such a poster does not bear any signs of information campaigns of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense or military brigades. And a reverse photo search on Google showed that for the fake ad, the propagandists used photos of the Ukrainian military and the motorcyclist, which are in open sources.

Also, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine does not conduct an information campaign with such slogans. There are no similar calls on the official website of the Ministry of Defense, as well as on its social networks on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine have a specific brand book: guidelines for the use of graphic style in visual communication of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At a minimum, the fake poster does not even meet the design requirements of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

An alleged cover of the British publication The Independent is being circulated on telegram channels. It allegedly contained the inscription “Prime Minister: “While we were watching Ukraine, we lost our country”, and also referred to a statement by Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who spoke about “suicidal thoughts” while commanding the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

But VoxCheck specialists analyzed the case and determined that such a cover does not exist. The original cover features the words of the British Prime Minister about the far-right riots in the country. And instead of a photo of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the page contains an image of Meghan Markle.

Moreover, the authors of the original issue wrote “Prime Minister warns far-right thugs: “You will regret taking part in the riots”, and the Duchess of Sussex and actress Meghan Markle are actually talking about “suicidal thoughts”, and not Valerii Zaluzhnyi. The text of the article relates directly to the unrest and does not contain any mention of Ukraine.

We have repeatedly documented hoaxes involving fake graffiti, foreign magazine covers/newspaper columns, or commercials. Thus, propagandists seek to show that their rhetoric (for example, that Zelenskyi is hated by the whole world) is also repeated in the West. So it may seem to readers that the public is really dissatisfied with Ukraine. And especially when the authors use elements of popular culture, hinting that people are laughing at the situation in Ukraine and that the Ukrainian agenda for Europe is a reason to laugh.

Anonymous telegrams are distributing a video report supposedly from the BBC. It, citing Bellingcat, claims that Ukraine sent SBU workers to the Olympics along with the athletes so that none of the participants in the competition would escape.

VoxCheck analysts explained that the BBC and Bellingcat did not disseminate such information, such information was simply made up. For example, the design of the fake video and the real BBC stories is different: the original reports use different fonts, and the video title is usually inserted into a white and red frame.

There are no short videos on media pages with only voice-over music - the BBC adds narrator accompaniment, comments from different speakers, or leaves the original sound from the scene without changing it in any way.

Using a reverse search on Google, it was possible to establish that the fakers selected random photos from the network for a fake story, for example, in one of the frames, demonstrating “current events”, they used a photo from 2018.

Read more: Macron may allegedly resign a week before the Olympics, BBC video

Propagandists have recently begun to spoof stories from well-known media, using their design elements to create the effect of recognition and trust in the viewer of one of the quality media. For example, we recently reported that anonymous people were spreading a fake story allegedly from the French publication Le Figaro, which talked about a “Ukrainian refugee killer”.

Anonymous telegram channels are distributing a story from Agence France-Presse about a survey among Ukrainians from the European statistical company Eurostat. According to Eurostat results, 64% of Ukrainians allegedly do not believe in the return of Ukrainian territories to the 1991 borders. Of those surveyed, 71% of Ukrainians allegedly “do not believe” that Ukraine will join NATO and the EU, respectively, in the next 5 years. And 77% of respondents are “disappointed” regarding the level of support from the EU and NATO.

VoxCheck analysts explained that AFP and Eurostat did not publish such statistics, because the Russians deliberately created a fake story with recognizable logos. According to current research, a significant part of Ukrainians believe that Ukraine will return territories within the 1991 borders as a result of the war.

For example, in February 2024, the Sociological Group “Rating” conducted an all-Ukrainian survey commissioned by the Center for Analysis and Sociological Research of the International Republican Institute, 2 thousand Ukrainians took part in the survey.

To the question: “In your opinion, what will the borders of Ukraine be as a result of the end of the war?”

45% of respondents answered that Ukraine will retain all the territories it had in 1991. While 16% of respondents said that Ukraine will return only territories occupied after February 24, 2022. In a similar survey by the organization conducted in March 2024, 73% of Ukrainians believed that Ukraine would eventually return all occupied territories.