There are reports online that in Ukraine, students “who have not donated money to purchase generators for the school” are allegedly not allowed to attend classes. To confirm this, users share a photo of what appears to be a school board, where a list of students who have not donated money is compiled and who are now prohibited from entering the computer science classroom.

“These students no longer enter the computer science classroom - this is how Ukrainian classes deal with those who failed to donate money for the generator. Now even education is paid in this country”, some Internet users comment.

But in accordance with Ukrainian legislation, namely Article 58 of the Law of Ukraine On Complete General Secondary Education, funding of state and municipal educational institutions is carried out at the expense of state and local budgets, as well as other sources not prohibited by law. In fact, the so-called requirements of the administration to the parents of students to collect funds for school repairs, classroom needs, the purchase of textbooks, detergents, etc. are illegal.

And local governments are responsible for purchasing generators for schools. According to the latest data, more than 80% of Ukrainian schools are equipped with generators. For example, this was stated in the response of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine to a request from Hromadske in early August 2024.

And with the help of a special tool InVID&WeVerify, it was possible to detect anomalies in the processes of image creation and compression, which indicates external interference. The analysis showed that objects were added or moved in the image. And also in the image itself, incorrect spelling of a number of surnames, phonetically close to their Russian pronunciation, was recorded. For example, “Lisenko” instead of “Lysenko”, “Petrichenko” instead of “Petrychenko”.

Anonymous Telegram channels are discussing the reaction of the Ukrainian leadership to a previously published article by The Wall Street Journal, which states that the number of killed Ukrainian soldiers allegedly reaches 80 thousand, and the wounded - 400 thousand. At a meeting with journalists on September 20, 2024, Volodymyr Zelenskyi denied such information.

“80 thousand? That's a lie. The real figure is significantly lower than what was published. Significantly”, Zelenskyi said.

WSJ journalists also reported that it is difficult to determine the exact number of dead and wounded in the Russian-Ukrainian war, since Russia and Ukraine refuse to publish official estimates or publish ones that “many do not trust”. And they formed their figures based on unnamed sources familiar with the situation in Ukraine.

Russian propagandists used this information drive and spread reports that Polish journalists also decided to conduct their own assessment of the dead and came up with a figure of up to 500 thousand killed Ukrainian soldiers.

“The more Ukrainian soldiers, and especially those from the western regions of Ukraine, die, the easier it will be for Poland to take back what already belongs only to it,” the propagandists who allegedly commented on the “results” of the study on Polish radio reported.

But this is just a Russian fake. No major Polish media outlets have come out with such news - and even with the help of a reverse Google search - using the key phrase “500,000 wojskowych zabitych na Ukrainie” (500 thousand soldiers died in Ukraine) there are no similar publications.

As for the phrase on Polish radio, it was also made up, because there were no “results”  of the study. Moreover, the quote that the propagandists cite was only published in the segment of Russian and anonymous telegram channels. That is, official sources did not confirm this: and the quote itself is a set of Russian rhetoric about “Poland taking the western part of Ukraine”.

Information about the dead is sensitive information that the Kremlin's minions are trying to speculate on, playing on the mood of Ukrainians. Due to the extremely inflated figures from the propagandists, it may seem that the war has no end and soon no one will be fighting. In general, such figures cannot be genuine; even the Ukrainian authorities can adjust some constant figures, for example, only deny the WSJ material, since it is currently impossible to establish the real number of dead during the active phase of the war.

Let us recall that in February of this year, the Ukrainian president reported the number of 31 thousand fallen Ukrainian soldiers over two years of the great war.

Russian Telegram channels claim that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in his congratulations on the Day of Defenders of Ukraine that this day is a holiday, in particular, of the invincible defenders of the Vuhledar fortress, who will soon march defeated Moscow. However, a few hours after the greeting was published, Vuhledar was finally taken by Russian troops, and therefore Syrskyi allegedly had to edit the message. As “proof” of this, the propagandists add screenshots of both the original and edited message.

In fact, Syrskyi did not edit his congratulations on the Day of Defenders of Ukraine. This is reported in the VoxCheck project.

The message in question appeared on the Facebook page of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on October 1, 2024, at 8 a.m. Kyiv time. The paragraph that the propagandists are writing about says: “This is a holiday for those who will go through all the hardships of war and battles. This is a holiday for those who will march in the parade of our Ukrainian Victory”. There was no mention of Vuhledar in it. On the morning of October 1, a number of Ukrainian media outlets distributed congratulations from Syrskyi, and the text of the message was the same everywhere - not a single one mentioned Vuhledar or the fact that the Victory Parade would take place in Moscow.

In addition, it would be noticeable on Facebook if the message was edited. In this case, when you click on the three dots in the upper right corner of the publication, the option “View history of changes” appears. Some of Syrskyi's messages were indeed edited after publication, however, no changes were made to the congratulations on Defenders' Day. Accordingly, the option “View history of changes” is not displayed.

Earlier we wrote about the Russians' lies, saying that two of Syrskyi's advisers were fired for uploading confidential documents to ChatGPT.

Russians are distributing a video on behalf of the Ministry of Energy, which allegedly urged Ukrainians to use manure briquettes for heating. After all, they supposedly burn longer and do not harm the environment. In the video, the Ministry of Energy also explains how they can be made.

However, this is a fake, the VoxCheck project writes. In fact, the Ministry of Energy has not published such a video either on its website or on its social media pages. Moreover, the department does not create vertical videos, as the Russians did, does not add its logo to the recordings and does not use the appropriate font. The forgery is also indicated by the mistakes made by the Russians. In Ukrainian, the correct spelling is “сушитися”, not “сушится” (to dry out). They also wrote the word “замішайте” incorrectly instead of “змішайте” (to mix).

With such fakes, Russians are trying to ridicule the Ukrainian authorities, who allegedly do nothing to solve energy problems, and to remove responsibility from Russia. However, in reality, it is precisely because of the massive shelling of the Russian army since March 2024 that Ukraine has lost more than 9 GW of generation, and Russia has occupied another 18 GW since the start of the invasion. All this leads to a shortage of generation and power outages.

Read on Censor.NET: Propagandists on behalf of the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine distribute photos of landmarks with recommendations for saving electricity

Russian sources are distributing a photo of what appears to be a billboard in New York City, which advertises recruitment for contract service in the Russian army. The text on the banner says: “Join the army of victory! Salary for the first year is 4,500,000 rubles. Sign a contract in Tatarstan!”

However, in reality, this is a fake photo, as reported by the VoxCheck project. Using Google's reverse image search function, the project's analysts were unable to find the photo that the propagandists could have used to create the fake, but they did find it in the Russian search engine Yandex.Image, which is blocked in Ukraine.

Accordingly, a reverse search showed that the photo that is being circulated these days is a still from a video filmed back in 2022. The original still frame does not contain a banner about recruitment for service in the Russian army, but an announcement from the special economic zone (SEZ) Alabuga, located in Tatarstan (Russia). The real billboard says in Russian “Time to go home”. The details of the photos are completely identical: the angle of the frame, the sky with clouds of the same shape, other advertising billboards. So, the propagandists took a screenshot from the old video and edited it.

Commenting on the original banner, Alabuga SEZ representative Daniia Utalieva told the propaganda publication Kommersant-Kazan that it is aimed at bringing back specialists in the fields of aviation, microelectronics and IT to Russia.

We have previously recorded a similar fake, which consisted of the fact that billboards in honor of Victory Day allegedly appeared in New York.

The Center for Countering Disinformation reports that Russian programmers are developing the game together with the Russian Defense Ministry. The game's creators claim that they will add ‘educational elements’ by modeling the game on military campaigns in Ukraine.

‘The authors promise realistic tactics and varied missions, in particular, defensive operations in various landscapes, depending on the skills of the vault fighters in constructing and fortifying their positions’.

And before the game's creators began creating the product itself, as the propaganda media says, they consulted with ‘invasion participants’ in Ukraine.

Propaganda happens everywhere and analyzes what content we consume. Even in a reasonable tone, Russia is able to fill the mind with its agenda. After all, at first glance, something absurd or funny helps the aggressor country to distract attention, reducing vigilance. This generally reduces resistance to Russian propaganda. Accordingly, in this way, through video games, people can, without suspecting it, absorb what Russia spreads on television, on anonymous Telegram channels and on other platforms.

Read also: Dive into the virtual world and come back as a ‘vatnik’: how Russia spreads its propaganda through video games.