A similar message was recently heard on a talk show on a Russian propaganda channel. According to the propagandists, Ukraine resembles a “flower jar” to which there is no point in explaining anything at all, and the negotiation agreement is also a useless thing. Like, this is not even a country, but a toy in the hands of Western curators. Moreover, as if it was the West that attacked Russia and that, they say, now ordinary Russians understand who the real enemy is.

In fact, propagandists deliberately distort reality. It was Russia that attacked Ukraine, which has been pursuing an aggressive policy towards neighboring countries and their partners for at least several decades. Russia also distorts history and actively uses it even in cases like this one. In addition, Russia creates the appearance that there is no point in negotiating with Ukraine, because it is allegedly the Ukrainian government that does not want this.

Thus, Russia nourishes two big narratives at once. The first of these is the “Western governance” narrative. Like, there is no point in negotiating with Ukraine, because all Western curators decide for it. The second narrative is that the aggressor is actually not Russia, but Ukraine, with which there is no point in negotiating, because it is the Ukrainian authorities that allegedly are not interested in a peaceful settlement of the war. However, in reality, Ukraine is not ready for negotiations on Russian terms, which include the annexation of Ukrainian territory.

Pro-Russian telegram channels used a recent interview with ex-Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett to spread disinformation. Detector Media refutes the main messages of Russian propaganda made on the basis of this interview.

Putin promised for “100%” that he would not kill Zelenskyi.

Propagandists claim that in an interview, Bennett said that the Russian president showed “mercy” to “bring peace”. They emphasize that allegedly Russia has power over Ukraine to such an extent that it can decide the fate of the President of Ukraine. Pro-Russian media write that it is supposedly “proof” of Zelenskyi's weakness and his personal “dependence” on Russia in the current situation.

In fact, the ex-premier does not say too much directly on the topic of Ukraine in an interview, but recalls that Russia allegedly promised not to do anything with the Ukrainian president. However, Bennett himself does not attach as much importance to this as propaganda ascribes to it. In particular, Bennett says he did not believe Putin's words. The message about Russia's “act of mercy” in this case is an invention of propagandists as  Bennett did not say this.

Western countries “leaked” the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

Russian propaganda writes that allegedly in an interview, Bennett said that the West is deliberately “dragging out” the war and does not consider Ukraine an independent state. Like, the West and personally Boris Johnson “curtailed” negotiations at the beginning of the war. Moreover, Ukraine allegedly only “plays along” with the West and has no influence on the outcome of the war.

The propagandists took Bennett's phrases out of context and mutilated quotes to advance their interests. According to Bennett, negotiations have indeed stalled. However, he calls the tragedy in Bucha, and not the unilateral decision of the West, the real reason for this. Bennett said that after these events, the negotiations ceased to make sense.

Russian propaganda has repeatedly tried to shift responsibility for its actions to others and create the illusion of a “sincere desire for peace”. To do this, they use the tactics of substitution of concepts. The main goal of propaganda is to demoralize Ukrainian society and increase the level of distrust in the authorities.

This thesis appeared in anonymous telegram channels broadcasting pro-Russian rhetoric. In their messages, they used the Gender Zed NGO post about same-sex sex among Zaporizhzhia cossacks. Like, the Ukrainian LGBT community is trying to distort the “real” Ukrainian history and is trying to make all the cossacks “perverts”. Moreover, the Russian propaganda focused on the part of the message about transgender people in the Orthodox Church of that time. This is manipulation.

The message of the organization is not scientific and cannot be perceived as genuine information, as the authors themselves point out. In addition, the material says that in the Zaporizhzhia Sich there were cruel punishments for same-sex sexual practices. The authors of the message do not claim that all cossacks were gay, but simply explain that the fact that gays among the cossacks were quite real. According to a number of studies, the human population is 7-10% of homosexual people. Therefore, it is quite clear that they could be in the Sich as well.

Russian propaganda actively manipulates topics related to the LGBT community in Ukraine and beyond. Russia, using LGBT disinformation, despises the democratic system, opposing it to the Russian world. Detector Media refuted the main myths about the representatives of the LGBT community, and also told how Ukrainian LGBT activists help in the fight against Russian occupiers.

This message is actively spread by pro-Russian telegram channels. Reports say that the energy system in Odesa and the region was already very poorly equipped and depleted, and therefore would not have survived despite Russian shelling. That is, according to the propagandists, the blackouts would have awaited the residents of Odesa even if Russia had not fired missiles at infrastructure facilities. In addition, local authorities were accused of hiding the real “details” of the situation and unequal distribution of electricity. They say that the reason for the problems with electricity is not the Russian bombing, but the “old age” of the Ukrainian energy infrastructure and the “inaction” of the Ukrainian authorities, which is only profiting from problems with electricity.

In fact, the difficult situation with electricity in Ukraine arose solely because of Russian aggression. Outrages in different regions of Ukraine began on October 10 after the first massive missile attack on infrastructure. As of today, according to information from Ukrenergo, the Ukrainian energy system has already survived 13 missile attacks and 15 waves of attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles. Unequal distribution of electricity often arises due to the technical complexity of the power grid, as well as other logistical circumstances.

Propagandists deliberately spread this message in order to distort reality and shift responsibility for their actions to others. In addition, such messages are aimed at creating mistrust towards the Ukrainian authorities and Ukraine as a whole.

Previously, Russian propaganda actively spread disinformation about problems with electricity in Ukraine. In particular, the propagandists accused the Ukrainian authorities of selling electricity abroad.

Pro-Kremlin media disseminate information that, according to a poll, 94% of German citizens do not support the supply of tanks to Ukraine. However, allegedly contrary to public opinion and under pressure from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, they were forced to agree on the supply of German tanks to Ukraine. This is manipulation.

In fact, according to the results of a regular public opinion poll, 46% of Germans supported the delivery of tanks to Ukraine, 43% were against, and another 11% refrained from answering. In terms of party affiliation: 66% of the supporters of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), 61% of the Greens and 49% of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) supported the transfer of tanks to Ukraine. Among the far-right Alternative for Germany party, 84% opposed the decision. It is their opinion, as the fact-checkers of Myth Detector note, that propagandists give out in the opinion of the Germans as a whole. However, in the elections in 2021, the party won the support of 10.3% of the vote. Therefore, such generalizations are incorrect. According to a poll conducted by Civey for Der Spiegel after the decision to transfer Leopard tanks to Ukraine, 54% of the population supported this decision.

Russian propaganda systematically spreads messages that the West does not want to help Ukraine with weapons, relying on non-authoritative sources of information or disfigured quotes. Thus, Russia is trying to undermine the authority of Ukraine at the international level, to show the weakness of the Ukrainian government. Propagandists continued to disseminate distorted opinion polls in Germany. They wrote that allegedly more than 70% of Germans are against increasing military assistance to Ukraine, or 40% of Germans are convinced that NATO provoked Russia into a war with Ukraine.

This message was spread by the Russian propaganda media. They say that Ukraine has allegedly been and is engaged in the sale of the fertile layer of land abroad. It seems that the Ukrainian black soil is exported to European countries along with the remnants of the Red Army soldiers who fought in World War II. In their articles, the Kremlin media refer to the words of Russian president Volodymyr Putin, uttered by him during a meeting with representatives of the “Yunarmiia” (Young military) military youth organization in honor of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Stalinhrad. However, this is all fake. 

The fact-checkers of the StopFake project drew attention to the case. According to fact-checkers, Putin reached such a “conclusion” about the sale of black soil with the remnants of the military after Lev Kravchenko, one of the “Yunarmiia” participants, told a story during a meeting about how a German farmer allegedly found a medal of a dead Red Army soldier, who died in 1944 on the territory of Ukraine, in his garden and transferred it to the Consulate General of Russia. According to Kravchenko, “the medal most likely ended up in Germany as a result of the sale of Ukrainian soil”. Like, only the medal was there, or the Ukrainians are trading in the remains of soldiers who fought for victory in World War II. In fact, the Soviet medal “For courage” was not found by a German farmer, but by an employee of a waste processing company, and not in the ground, but in garbage. In addition, according to StopFake, the statement itself that Ukraine allegedly exports black soil abroad is completely absurd and unfounded. There are no documented facts or investigations by independent experts on the export of Ukrainian land abroad. In addition, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 58% of Ukrainian lands are experiencing degradation, and 20% - pollution. However, Russian propaganda needs such messages to once again discredit Ukraine and Ukrainians. To show that Ukrainians are ruthless and they are indifferent to the memory of those who died in World War II, because they are ready to sell black soil abroad for profit, even with the remnants of soldiers.

Such information appeared in the Kremlin propaganda media and telegram channels broadcasting pro-Russian rhetoric. The reports claim that in the Kyiv region they announced a recruitment into nationalist groups reorganized into brigades under the general name “Offensive Guard”. Like, this is akin to the creation of military formations in the system of the Ministry of internal affairs in case of any internal conflicts in the Ukrainian elite. The propagandists also dubbed the offensive guards Nazis, once again trying to nourish the narrative that Ukrainians are Nazis. However, this is not true. 

The fact checkers of the StopFake project drew attention to the case. In Ukraine, they really announced the formation of new brigades, but they have nothing to do with Nazism. “Offensive Guard” is a project of the Ministry of internal affairs of Ukraine aimed at strengthening the National guard, the National police and the State border service of Ukraine during the upcoming liberation of Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea. However, such fakes are beneficial to propagandists in order to once again spread the narrative that Ukrainians are Nazis, so Russia is doing everything right by denazifying Ukraine. Russian propaganda regularly creates such fakes and manipulations to nourish the narrative about the rise of Nazism in Ukraine. In particular, propagandists said that Ukrainians allegedly decorate Christmas trees with swastika toys or shout Nazi greetings at weddings.

Russian media have spread reports of “harassment of Russian speakers” in Ukraine. The reports refer to the words of Russian foreign minister Serhii Lavrov. He said that interpersonal communication in Russian was allegedly banned in Ukraine. Moreover, the use of Russian in everyday life allegedly provides for criminal punishment. It's fake.

As the Stop Fake fact checkers note, in Ukraine there is no criminal punishment for communication in Russian, especially for interpersonal communication. The Law “On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language” does not regulate the spheres of religious rites and private communication, this is noted in Article 2 of the Law. In the law, the Russian language is not mentioned at all and is not singled out as a separate category, it is only about the state Ukrainian language. There are no prohibitions on the Russian language in other laws and regulations of Ukraine.

Thus, Russian propaganda is trying to promote narratives about the oppression of Russian speakers in order to artificially incite hostility among Ukrainians, as well as to divide Ukrainians according to their place of residence. Earlier, propagandists spread the message that a war had begun in Ukraine because of the ban on the Russian language, and they also wrote that the Ministry of culture of Ukraine plans to remove Russian literature from libraries.

This message was spread by pro-Russian telegram channels in the context of the discovery of a Chinese balloon in US airspace. According to China, it was a meteorological airship that allegedly went astray. The propagandists wrote that the American air defense system failed to do its job, so the United States did not immediately shoot down the balloon. To promote the message, they also used quotes from US ex-president Trump and US senators supporting him. Trump said that the bullet should have been shot down immediately and if he was still president, he would have done it faster. The propagandists came to the conclusion that the US is “really” a weak ally for Ukraine due to Biden’s “indecisiveness”. Moreover, the US is supplying its “inefficient” air defense systems to Ukraine.

In fact, the US did not immediately shoot down the balloon, as they verified the purpose of its stay in US airspace. After it was confirmed that the bullet was following US military units, it was shot down. It was impossible to shoot down the balloon without proper confirmation, since this could really lead to an escalation of relations between the United States and China. Trump's quotes in this context are manipulative, as Bloomberg found that during his presidency he ignored at least three similar situations with Chinese spy balloons. That is, the US leadership and the US military acted according to established rules, and did not show weakness, as Russian propaganda states.

By spreading messages about the “weakness” of the United States, Russia is trying to devalue partner assistance for Ukraine and discredit the United States in the eyes of Ukrainians. In fact, the issue of the war in Ukraine remains important to American politics. This is proved by new decisions on additional military assistance for Ukraine.

Earlier, propagandists wrote that the United States allegedly supported Ukraine in the war because of its interest in Ukrainian titanium, or would turn Ukraine into a new Afghanistan.

War is the seizure of territories. However, according to Russian propagandists, it is the Russian military who, having crossed the border of a foreign country, having annexed part of the territory, do not seize it, but, on the contrary, liberate it. In particular, this is one of the main tasks of the so-called “special military operation”. In order to explain Russia's invasion into Ukraine, Russian propaganda distorts reality and uses the phrase “liberation of territories”.

“Liberation” - the term by which Russia appears as a liberator that does not destroy and brings death, but on the contrary, liberates its territories from the Ukrainian yoke.

Russian propaganda uses the term “liberation” to hint that the Russian army is only restoring justice: returning to Russia what already belonged to it, and somehow ended up outside its borders in some random way. Like, the same Crimea, Donetsk region, Luhansk region or even Kharkiv and Kherson regions have always been Russian, and Russians live there. However, the resistance that the Ukrainians are and have been providing in the territories temporarily occupied by Russia, just demonstrates the opposite. It is beneficial for Russians to substitute the concept, white to be called black, and occupation to be called  liberation. Thus, Russia's actions allegedly lose their negative connotation and acquire a different, already positive content. At the same time, the occupation of territories and their subsequent annexation is illegal, so propagandists do not use such words so as not to show the true face of the Russian leadership and their military subordinates.

This is the fifth text for the new section “Newspeak”, which Detector Media launched as part of the “Disinformation Chronicles” project. In it, we will tell and explain new lexemes that Russian propaganda uses to distort reality.