Information is being spread online that the SBU is allegedly detaining fortune tellers and psychics who predict the defeat of Ukraine and the illness of President Zelenskyi. A video report from the so-called Really_UA says that 8 tarot bloggers have already been detained for fortune telling with predictions of Russia’s military successes. They are accused of tax evasion and discrediting the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

VoxCheck analysts reported that a telegram news channel or full-fledged media called Really_UA does not exist at all. There is no information in other Ukrainian media about the detention of tarot readers.

Read on Censor.NET: Good evening, we are from the “Battle of Psychics” - “witches”, “molfars” and “fortune tellers” - have occupied the airwaves of media that call themselves information.

And the video report itself is a clipping of unrelated frames that are easy to find on the Internet. For example, the first photo from the video was used at least back in 2018.

Russian propagandists publish photos of one of the stores of household and professional equipment of the German brand Kacher in Ukraine. And they add that they seem to have posted an announcement in the store: “Generators are not for sale. Everything has been reserved for the needs of the National Police and the Territorial centers of recruitment and social support”.

VoxCheck analysts add that this photo is fake. The screenshot itself was taken from a video of the Kacher store in Kamianets-Podilskyi: it was edited and information about the alleged reservation of generators was added. But in fact, the poster is an advertisement for vacuum cleaners.

The video was published on the Toktok page of a store from Kamianets-Podilskyi. The fact that the propagandists took the frame from this particular video is indicated by the shooting angle, the identical location of the vacuum cleaners and the design of the tiles on the floor.

So, it is not about “reservation” of generators at all.

Russian anonymous telegram channels spread the news, allegedly due to the fact that Nestlé Waters France is suspending the sale of mineral water due to problems with its quality - and the remaining products in the warehouse will be sent to Ukraine as humanitarian aid.

Before publication, they are milking the so-called statement of the organization from the social network X, which states that Nestlé Waters refuses to admit that “contaminated water” remained in the warehouse. Therefore, propagandists are trying to prove the opposite - supposedly Nestlé representatives are lying about the quality of water in order to get rid of defective products as quickly as possible.

VoxCheck specialists investigated this case and found out that the company had not made such statements at all, neither about stopping the sale of water, nor about denying the fact of “pollution”.

Analysts said that in February 2024, the international consumer organization foodwatch filed a lawsuit in France against mineral water producers Nestlé Waters and Sources Alma. Companies disinfected contaminated water using prohibited methods and thus sold ordinary tap water as mineral water. Nestlé admitted their guilt and stopped this practice.

But Nestlé Waters France did not publish the news about sending contaminated water to Ukraine and the Gaza Strip on its website, YouTube or X. Moreover, X’s account has been inactive since March 2022. That is, there cannot be a statement for July 2024, as indicated in the fake screenshot.

Pro-Russian telegram channels cited the publication of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and Facebook about the adoption of a law on the mobilization of convicts. In fact, the adopted law provides that prisoners can enter into a contract with the armed forces of Ukraine and subsequently serve in specific units of the defense forces.

“The men are running out: female prisoners are being massively recruited into the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, the propagandists summed up.

In fact, according to the law, the opportunity to join the army is given not only to convicted men, but also to women. According to the publication, as of July 24, 2024, seven convicted women expressed a desire to join the fighters and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Among other things, out of 6,101 convicts who expressed a desire to fight, 3,832 people have already left penal institutions for special training. The publication does not indicate how many of the 6,101 are women and whether there are any at all; it was about seven convicts, which means that the propagandists simply invented a massive “tendency to hire women”. In addition, the post of the Ministry of Justice clearly states that the signing of a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine occurs directly by expression of will and otherwise.

However, there is nothing wrong with women expressing their own desire to serve. Kremlin propaganda presents such a situation as forced and irreversible: as if the Ukrainian leadership is ready to “recruit” everyone so that there is someone to fight. Moreover, they demonstrate this in such a way that Ukrainian women are taken to the front because there seem to be “no more men left” - thus demonstrating misogyny about the possible fights, which become only a “replacement” and only “weaken” the situation at the front.

Russian telegram channels disseminate information that Spanish translators are wanted  in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. OSINT analysts seem to claim that the search for such a specialist means that a large number of “mercenaries” from Latin America will soon arrive in Ukraine. As proof, publications add a screenshot from the LobbyX job search platform.

VoxCheck analysts analyzed the case and found out that the advertisements were indeed published in the Lobby X ARMY telegram channel, but similar offers had appeared before. It is still unknown about the exact number of foreigners in the Ukrainian Defense Forces. That is, propagandists simply came up with this information based on translator vacancies. Although no evidence of the arrival of the so-called mercenaries was provided.

Russian propaganda replaces the concept and calls the foreign legion mercenaries. The Foreign Legion is legally part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces; the exact number of its participants is not reported, like all other fighters. Accordingly, Russian propaganda wants to downplay the importance of the Ukrainian army, contrasting it with the so-called “mercenaries”, of whom there are supposedly more on the battlefield. At the same time, Moscow equates “mercenaries” with criminals in the context of Ukraine. However, mercenaries really fight on the Russian side, for example, the Wagner group representatives.