A Polish pro-Russian Telegram channel, citing representatives of the ‘Mykolaiv underground’, spread information that hospitals in the city of Dnipro are overflowing with ‘high-ranking NATO military personnel’. These patients are ‘so high-profile’ that SBU officers are allegedly on duty at the entrance and on the floors of hospitals, demanding that doctors sign confidentiality agreements. This secrecy regime is allegedly introduced in the event of ‘serious incidents involving Alliance generals’.

However, this information has nothing to do with reality. The Polish pro-Russian Telegram channel, which spreads the ‘news’ about NATO generals in Dnipro hospitals, regularly produces disinformation about the war in Ukraine.

In addition, this is not the first time that propagandists have referred to the so-called ‘Mykolaiv underground’. We previously reported on a fake that ‘black transplantologists’ had arrived in the Sumy region - the source of this disinformation was precisely representatives of this ‘resistance movement’.

Recently, the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security reported that, in addition to direct work for Russia, the myth of the ‘Mykolaiv underground’ was created for propaganda purposes. After all, in reality, Russian special services do not have a powerful network in Ukraine. In most cases, they either simply pay or promise to pay unwitting citizens of Ukraine for carrying out certain assignments. Instead, the agitprop talks about a ‘numerous ideological underground’ that supposedly selflessly helps Russia ‘liberate Ukraine’.

Pro-Russian resources are spreading information that the leader of the German opposition bloc CDU/CSU, Friedrich Merz, said during a speech in the Bundestag: “We must work harder because Ukraine needs money”.

In fact, Merz's words were distorted, as reported by investigative journalists from the German Correctiv. The video fragment that is being distributed online comes from Merz's speech at the vote of confidence on December 16, 2024. In it, he said that Germans need to work harder to strengthen the German economy. Merz did not mention Ukraine in this context. At the same time, in his speech in the Bundestag, Merz spoke of a united will to end Russia's aggressive war as soon as possible.

The CDU and CSU want to support Ukraine with “diplomatic, financial and humanitarian means, as well as arms supplies”, as stated in their election platform for the 2025 Bundestag elections.

With this manipulation, propagandists are trying to convince citizens of European countries that their officials are more concerned about Ukraine than about themselves. Accordingly, in this way, Russia seeks to turn Europeans against supporting Ukraine and influence the reduction of aid.

Previously, we analyzed the Russian manipulation that Ukrainian refugees in Germany would be forcibly returned to Ukraine.

The Center for Countering Disinformation reports that Russian propagandists continue to implement an information operation aimed at discrediting the servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who are performing tasks in the Pokrovsk area. In particular, the Russians are spreading new fakes about ‘mass killings of civilians’. The propagandists lie that the Ukrainian military is killing civilians who are allegedly moving towards Russian positions in search of salvation.

Russia seeks to intimidate the people who still remain in the city, turn them against the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and disrupt the evacuation from Pokrovsk. Finally, the Center for Countering Disinformation adds that Russia intends to use the civilian population as a ‘human shield’ to deter the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Previously, we analyzed disinformation about the alleged mass registration of Ukrainians in Pokrovsk ‘to become Russian citizens after the occupation of the city’.

Russian resources are spreading information that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi made his New Year's address against the backdrop of the Motherland monument illuminated in the colors of the US flag. The propagandists add: “As they say, 'an independent and sovereign state'”.

In fact, this is another manipulation by propagandists, the StopFake project reports. During President Zelenskyi's New Year's address to Ukrainians, the Motherland monument was illuminated in the colors of the Ukrainian flag for the vast majority of the time. At the same moment when Zelenskyi spoke about Ukraine's allies and thanked them for their support, the monument was illuminated in the colors of the flags of other states, including the colors of the US flag. Then Zelenskyi said the following: “Because our friends are with us. And from the first minutes of this war, America was with Ukraine. And I believe that America will be with Ukraine in the first minutes of peace”.

This manipulation is intended to assert that Ukraine is actually ruled by “overseas masters” and is not a sovereign state at all. We previously wrote about how Russian propagandists twisted Zelenskyi’s words in an interview with CBN.

Russian sources claim that the news about the Ukrainian military capturing the first North Korean fighter is a fake, as the photo with him was allegedly distributed online on February 24, 2022. As proof of this, propagandists cite a screenshot of a reverse image search from Google, which indeed indicates that the photo was published on Reddit in the UkraineWarVideoReport community on the first day of the full-scale war.

However, this screenshot is disinformation, writes the StopFake project.

Yonhap news agency, citing South Korean intelligence, reported on December 27, 2024 that on December 26, the Ukrainian Armed Forces captured the first North Korean soldier in the Kursk region of Russia. However, the very next day, the soldier died from complications after being wounded. In the same days, photos of this prisoner of war began to circulate on the Internet.

In turn, the screenshot from Google Images that Russian propagandists are spreading is either edited or an example of a typical Google search technical glitch that occurs when searching for posts on Reddit. This issue has been discussed repeatedly on Reddit - a number of posts have been dedicated to it, but it is still unknown what exactly causes this glitch.

Moreover, the propagandists published a screenshot not of the publication itself, where the date is clearly visible, but of the result of a Google search query.

February 24, 2022 is the date of the creation of the UkraineWarVideoReport community on Reddit: it is a pro-Ukrainian resource where English-speaking users share information and materials about the Russian-Ukrainian war. The photo of the first captured fighter from North Korea was indeed published here, not two years ago, but on December 27, 2024.

We previously wrote about how Russia is hiding losses among the North Korean military.