Propagandists use various conspiracy theories to justify Russian aggression against Ukraine. One such example is the idea of “gay propaganda” and the “blue mafia”. “Gay propaganda” or “homosexual propaganda” is a term used in religious circles to disparage the promotion of cultural acceptance and normalization of non-heterosexual orientations and relationships. They say that in Western countries there is a circle of gay elites - the “blue mafia”, which “forcibly” promotes the “superiority” of LGBT couples over heterosexual ones. Children allegedly become LGBT persons after viewing LGBT-related content. According to conspiracy theorists, such methods are used to reduce the world's population. Although the “blue mafia” theory initially concerned only showbiz and fashion, later conservative activists and especially Russia dragged it into politics.

The term “gay agenda” actually originates from the United States and is actively used in other countries with active anti-LGBTQ movements, such as Hungary and Uganda. It was made popular by a video series produced by California-based religious group Springs of Life Ministries in 1992. A series of these videos were circulated in many Christian organizations and spoke of “gay propaganda”.

Conservative activists and conspiracy theorists also include efforts to change government policies and laws regarding LGBT rights as gay propaganda. In particular, American conservative activists use the term to refer to changes in LGBT rights legislation, such as same-sex marriage and protection against discrimination. Russian propagandists took this into account and adjusted it to the local context. They say that liberal forces in the USA and the EU are forcing Ukraine to recognize LGBT couples as more important in the legal field than heterosexual ones, from which Russia supposedly has to save us. They say we cannot allow a future where LGBT couples have more rights than heterosexual couples.

Russia adapted these theories not only in its propaganda, but also in its legislation. In particular, on June 11, 2013, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a law prohibiting “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors. This law supplements the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO RF) with an article providing for administrative liability for “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors, and also makes changes to the federal law “On the protection of children from information harmful to their health and development”, according to which Information prohibited for distribution among children also includes information “promoting non-traditional sexual relationships”. In addition, the law introduces amendments similar to the law “On Basic Guarantees of the Rights of the Child in the Russian Federation”.

On November 30, 2023, Judge Oleg Nefedov of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation declared it an “extremist organization” and banned the “international public movement of LGBT people”. With this decision, the Supreme Court satisfied the claim of the Russian Ministry of Justice, sent on November 17, 2023. Since the beginning of Russian aggression against Ukraine, the condition of the LGBT community in the Russian Federation has deteriorated significantly. Thus, in 2022, a law was passed banning LGBT propaganda among adults, and in July 2023, a law banning transgender transition. According to human rights activists, the Russian authorities were thus trying to distract the conservative electorate from the failures in the war with Ukraine, strengthening homophobia and transphobia in society.

Sexual orientation (regardless of whether it is heterosexuality or homosexuality) is natural and does not depend on the work of the media, fashion, ideology or the activity of any social groups. Detector Media has repeatedly debunked absurd Russian fake news aimed at reinforcing the “gay propaganda” narrative.

Propagandists are distributing on social networks a photo of a young woman wearing a vest worn by social workers and volunteers, laughing against the backdrop of a large fire that occurred in Berlin on March 12 in the Tegel refugee camp, where Ukrainian refugees are also staying. “The strange reaction of a volunteer of a Berlin camp for Ukrainian refugees after a large fire started on the territory”, write Russian anonymous telegram channels. However, this photo is fake.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that the fakeness of the photo is primarily indicated by the fact that it began to be disseminated by Russian anonymous telegram channels, which were repeatedly seen publishing disinformation. The picture is being circulated everywhere along with the video as “proof” that it was taken from it, but upon detailed analysis of the video of the fire, StopFake discovered that this particular frame was not in it.

Fact-checkers also examined many videos on social networks that appeared after the fire in the refugee camp set up on the territory of the former Tegel Airport in Berlin, but did not find this footage of a volunteer. In addition, if one carefully analyzes the image, they can see traces of the photo editor’s intervention. Thus, there is a stripe between the girl’s head and the smoke, and the structure of the image against the background of the hands is also blurred, which indicates poor-quality insertion of other elements into the photograph.

Analyzing a photo using tools that detect the use of a photo editor is quite difficult, since it has been stored and watermarked multiple times, but even then, the photo shows different layers indicating tampering.

Such a fake is spreading in the context of a popular Russian disinformation narrative that the West is supposedly tired of Ukrainian refugees and is no longer ready to help them. However, in reality, countries continue to provide asylum to Ukrainian refugees, social protection and education to Ukrainian children. Detector Media refuted a number of Russian fakes about refugees from Ukraine in the West.

In mid-March 2024, Russian propagandists spread information that Ukraine was allegedly not releasing citizens of African countries and was “forcibly” mobilizing them for military operations. Like, this was reported by the American television channel ABC News, where a Congolese citizen allegedly claimed that he was offered to fight for Ukraine. However, this is manipulation.

After disseminating this information, StopFake decided to check whether a Congolese citizen really complained to an American TV channel that he was not being allowed out of Ukraine and was being “forced” to mobilize for military action. They found out that the news was false.

In the video distributed by Russian propaganda, the foreigner cannot be heard complaining that he is not allowed to leave Ukraine. At the beginning of the video, the voice of a TV presenter talks about a person from the Congo who claims that he was the target of discrimination when trying to board an evacuation train. What follows is the direct language of a foreigner who says that he was offered to fight for Ukraine. After his comment, the video ends. It is impossible to draw conclusions about why he was not released from the country and whether they really tried to “forcibly” mobilize him.

In this regard, StopFake tried to find this news on the American ABC News channel and reconsider whether there was perhaps additional context that could help understand this situation better. The video shows that the Congolese citizen's name is Pira Diantuadi. We managed to find an article about this man on the ABC News website. It turned out that it was published in the spring of 2022 and was dedicated to foreign refugees trying to leave Ukraine after the full-scale Russian invasion. The authors of the material tried to figure out whether there was discrimination on racial grounds during the evacuation from the country. In particular, Diantuadi complained that, despite promising to put only “women and children” on the evacuation train, he saw Ukrainian men being put on the evacuation train. The material is accompanied by an insert where Diantuadi talks about the proposal to fight for Ukraine, which the propagandists took advantage of. However, the material does not contain any conclusions that Ukraine tried to deliberately not let foreigners out of the country and “forcibly” mobilize them.

The ABC News article also noted that the interview with the Congolese citizen was conducted in Poland. The inscriptions in Polish in the background of the video confirm this. That is, the foreigner still managed to leave Ukraine at the beginning of the Russian invasion. Therefore, Russian propaganda tried to use the story of the “travel ban” and “forced” mobilization of foreign citizens in a new way, publishing an old video of a person in order to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of citizens of the countries of the South.

It should be added that according to Ukrainian legislation, foreigners cannot be mobilized. As the head of the personnel department of the headquarters of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel Roman Horbach, explained in a comment to ArmyInform, a foreigner can only want this himself.

“According to the law, foreigners can be drafted into the Defense Forces. But they are not called up for mobilization, but are accepted for military service voluntarily under a contract in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, said Roman Horbach.

Propagandists in the Russian media are frightened with a “nuclear apocalypse” due to the disconnection of the second power unit of the Khmelnytsk NPP from the network. They say that this “emergency shutdown” was caused by “nuclear fuel from Westinghouse from the United States”. They appeal to the fact that reactors of Russian origin operate only on Russian nuclear fuel, so changing suppliers is very risky. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that the national operator Energoatom reported that the shutdown of the second power unit of the Khmelnytsk NPP occurred due to “fluctuations in the axial shift parameter of the rotor of the high-pressure cylinder of the turbine unit with an increasing tendency”. This is a mechanical problem and not a nuclear safety issue. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that the outage had no impact on nuclear safety. Ukrainian nuclear power plants have long expanded their capabilities and abandoned Russian fuel in favor of American fuel. Propagandists are trying to discredit this process and again “throw stones” at the West by spreading these fakes.

Propagandists spreading pro-Russian rhetoric on anonymous telegram channels claim that the Ukrainian military is given the drug ketamine so that they will not be afraid of battle. They write that “Time magazine, citing neuroscientists from the United States, stated that the Ukrainian command uses ketamine “at zero front line”; it is a specific hallucinogenic drug”. However, this is manipulation.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that propagandists distorted the content of the article, which actually talked about the use of ketamine in the treatment of veterans and military personnel in Ukraine.

The Time article noted that “psychedelic drugs may help troops overcome trauma” in war and that “some (Ukraine) military personnel have already received legal ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic with some hallucinogenic effects, in private clinics”. This applies to the treatment of military personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or having a traumatic brain injury. However, the massive use of ketamine in therapy has not yet been considered in Ukraine.

Regarding the use of drugs by military personnel in combat, Time mentions in its article a report alleging that Russian soldiers in Ukraine are given amphetamines before combat.

In Ukraine, there is still an ongoing debate about this method of treatment, as StopFake notes. In particular, previously the initiator of the introduction of psychedelic-assisted therapy, a doctor at the State Center for Psychological Health and Rehabilitation of Veterans “Lisova Haliavyna” of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, Kseniia Voznytska, explained that this topic is very stigmatized in Ukraine and that most people do not even know what psychedelic-assisted therapy is. This is an inpatient type of treatment under the supervision of psychotherapists.

Propagandists from time to time spread misinformation that Ukrainian military personnel are drug addicts and alcoholics because they cannot withstand the horrors of the front. These false reports are intended to discredit the Ukrainian Armed Forces, hinder mobilization in the country and demoralize Ukrainian society as a whole. Detector Media has already refuted such a fake before.