A photo is being circulated on social networks, which is allegedly part of an advertising campaign for KharkivPride, calling on people to join the future Pride coming up in September.

The ad supposedly writes: “It’s better for the AFU to be a gay than a straight draft dodger. Take part in Pride! The country is proud of you”.

At the same time, propagandists ridicule representatives of the LGBTQIA community, saying that “homosexual soldiers” simply do not exist.

Firstly, there is no such announcement from KharkivPride. It is impossible to see such an image on their social media pages. And with the help of a reverse search on Google, it was possible to establish that this photo was published only on anonymous telegram channels.

Homophobia is one of the signs of Russian society, which it militantly defends. In particular, according to Putin, a full-scale invasion should supposedly become a means of protecting traditional values from Western norms that directly lead to degradation and degeneration, since they “contradict human nature”. The Russian government has fueled hatred of the LGBTQIA community, notably by passing a law in 2013 banning so-called homosexual propaganda. Later, at the end of 2022, Putin signed a package of laws prohibiting “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” and “propaganda of gender reassignment and pedophilia”. Thus, a legislative initiative banned “LGBT propaganda” in any goods sold in Russia.

Read also: How Russian propaganda is trying to use LGBTQIA issues in the context of the war against Ukraine

In fact, Moscow shows that belonging to the LGBTQIA community is considered something unacceptable. Discrediting a person; or why a person is considered “wrong”. With the help of such messages, propagandists ridicule and humiliate the inhabitants of Europe. For example, Russian propaganda systematically discredits European officials, all of whom are “gays and lesbians”. Allegedly, homosexual orientation is a disadvantage and such a person cannot occupy high positions, be popular, etc.

Consumers of propaganda may be under the false impression that everything related to LGBT people is negative although homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality.

On social networks in the Russian segment, they add that the American authorities “expect” the Ukrainian Armed Forces to use ATACMS long-range missiles “against Russian cities”. Thus, propagandists concluded that the United States was “forcing” Ukraine to attack Russia. The messages also refer to CNN material.

StopFake fact-checkers explained that even in the article they write how the United States “does not want to give permission” to Ukraine to use American long-range weapons against enemy targets on Russian territory.

Regarding the Kursk region, the United States officially denied involvement in organizing the operation in the Kursk region. For example, as Reuters writes, the United States still considers Ukraine’s invasion of the Kursk region of Russia unexpected.

The Biden administration is now working to determine Ukraine's goals in its offensive, which U.S. officials say has taken Washington by surprise.

Moreover, the American government has not lifted absolutely all restrictions for the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the use of weapons on Russian territory: neither in range nor in use. Actually, the country's leadership is still determining the feasibility of using weapons in the Kursk region. That is about the fact that the United States was not informed about this offensive.

Anonymous telegrams are distributing photos of the so-called draft decision of the Sumy District Council on the inclusion of the Russian city of Sudzha and the Sudzha district into the Sumy district of the region of the same name in Ukraine. The document states that a referendum and elections will be held in the Sudzha district.

But VoxCheck specialists established that on August 8 (as indicated in the document) the Sumy District Council did not hold the 29th session, at which they allegedly decided to annex the Russian city and region to Ukraine. The press service of the district council told fact-checkers that the document was fake.

Also on its Facebook page, the Sumy District Council reported that the document was a fake. “The Sumy district council is not considering the decision to include the city of Sudzha and the Sudzha district of the Russian Federation into the Sumy district of the Sumy region”, the message stated.

Actually, Ukraine does not violate international law and does not annex the territories of neighboring states. All actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the territory of modern Russia do not go beyond the bounds of the Geneva Conventions and the rules of war. In contrast to Russia, which has been occupying Ukrainian territory since 2014 and holding pseudo-referendums.

In fact, fictitious referendums in temporarily occupied territories are not the expression of the will of Ukrainians, but indicate Russia’s desire to give legitimacy to its criminal actions. In particular, the seizure of Ukrainian regions. This is not a legitimate vote at all. Its results, in addition to Russia itself, are recognized by its “sister states”, such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. That is, this is the occupation of foreign territories by Moscow.

Read also the Newspeak section: “new regions of Russia”

On anonymous telegram channels they write that the former commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and now the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the UK, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, seems to be announcing a plan to annex the Kursk region to Ukraine. After this, according to him, it is possible to beat deeper with Western weapons on Russian territory. A video is added to the publications in which Zaluzhnyi allegedly talks about this.

Fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project found out that the original source of the video was a humorous telegram channel, and pro-Kremlin resources began to distribute the video as real and official news. Moreover, the video material was created using artificial intelligence technologies.

Moreover, neither Ukrainian nor foreign media wrote about such plans or distributed the video with Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Ukrainian troops broke through the Russian border in the Sumy region on Tuesday, August 6. Already on August 12, President Zelenskyi for the first time directly wrote that Ukraine was conducting an operation in the Kursk region of Russia. Back on August 12, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi stated that Ukraine controls almost 1,000 km of Kursk region. As of August 13, it became known that 74 settlements in Russia are under Ukrainian control.

Read on Censor.NET: The United States seems to be involved in the operation in the Kursk region

Pro-Russian telegram channels are disseminating information that on the website of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi, residents of Zaporizhzhia have registered an electronic petition for the “opening of anti-radiation shelters”. The text of the appeal states that there are such shelters in the city, but it is supposedly impossible to get into them if you do not know the “right” people. Propagandists add a screenshot of the petition as “proof”.

In fact, such treatment does not exist. One can verify this by checking the petition, a screenshot of which is being distributed by propagandists on the electronic petitions website. Thus, on the website of the President of Ukraine there is no appeal under number 22/215b442-eп. Moreover, it could not exist, since the petition number contains an extra letter “b” in the middle. If one removes the unnecessary things, the petition numbered No. 22/215442-eп really exists, but its topic is different, and it is dated January 11, 2024.

The Center for Countering Disinformation also stated that this is a fake. The Russians once again created a fake petition, probably with the help of a graphic editor, and passed it off as real. For example, a little earlier we recorded misinformation about the alleged existence of a petition to name the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces after Iryna Farion.