On February 23, a few hours before a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and during Putin's official address, the Russian president declared that a clash between Russia and “nationalist forces” in Ukraine was inevitable. After that, the so-called special military operation was officially announced.

The special military operation is one of the most eloquent examples of how Russia uses newspeak to hide and distort reality, and at the same time absolve itself of responsibility under international law.

Special military operation (in Russian - SVO) is a term that has entered the dictionary of the Russian new language and is used to refer to Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine. In other words, the war that the aggressor country started. With the help of a combination of these words, the true meaning of the concept of “war” is blurred among people, because this is just an “operation” that is not associated with something bloody. And it seems to be done well. Propagandists have repeatedly noted that this “operation”, for example, is designed to save the Russian-speaking people, enslaved under the yoke of Ukraine. That is, the occupiers appear as some kind of liberators who allegedly carry out an “operation” for the sake of salvation.

However, there is a war going on in Ukraine, and this is clear without any announcements. However, international law is not focused on words and statements, but on specific actions. Therefore, what is happening from the point of view of international law is an obvious war. The terrorist country, masquerading as the concept of “SVO”, actually carried out a large-scale offensive on the territory of the whole of Ukraine and has been committing war crimes since the invasion. However, calling what is happening only an operation, Russia is blurring reality in order to hide its true goals in Ukraine.

This text is the first in the “Newspeak” section, which Detector Media is launching as part of the Disinformation Chronicles project. In it, we will tell and explain new lexemes used by Russian propaganda to distort reality.

We recall that the newspeak is an artificial language from George Orwell's dystopian novel “1984”. In the novel, Newspeak means words that lose their original meaning and have a completely opposite meaning. For example: war - peace. According to the plot of the novel, such a technique was used by the totalitarian party. It is this technique that has gained popularity among representatives of real totalitarian regimes. In particular, Nazi and Russian.

Russian media are spreading information that Ukraine plans to ban calling a hare “rusak”  (gray hare). Like, this name is associated with the Russians and Russia. As evidence, the propagandists cite an alleged video recording of a live broadcast on the Ukrainian TV channel 1+1. On it, during a story about the defense of the Donetsk airport in 2014-2015, the news feed allegedly noted: “The gray hare” will be forbidden to be called a “rusak-hare” - the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. It's fake.

StopFake's fact-checkers discovered that an excerpt circulating online had been edited. The official account of the TSN program on Facebook has a full version of the broadcast of the news marathon for January 16 with a report by journalists from the Rada TV channel about the battles for the Donetsk airport, which was used by propagandists. The original video in the news feed contained information that the White House believes that Russia's attempts to demoralize the Ukrainians failed again, citing CNN.

In this way, Russian propagandists are trying to nourish the narrative that Ukrainians are Nazis and russophobes who hate everything related to Russians.

Russian propaganda media are spreading an excerpt from a video from an interview with a German Bundestag deputy, where a bus with the inscription “Zelensky is a black hole” is allegedly visible. According to the Kremlin media, such transport appeared on the streets of Berlin.

Also, messages on the network say that the driver has already been fined for the inscription on his transport. However, this whole situation is a fiction of Russian propaganda.

According to Vox Ukraine analysts, the video shows an interview with German MP Nina Scheer for Die Welt, which she shared on her Facebook page. The clothing and location are identical to those in the bus video. In the recording from the interview, at about the third minute, the bus already known to us appears, but it is clearly visible that the inscription there is completely different: Busmobil 24.

Also in the German media there is no mention of the existence of a bus with the inscription “Zelensky is a black hole”, as well as no reports of a driver's fine.

With such fakes, Russia is trying to discredit the Ukrainian authorities. With the beginning of a full-scale invasion, this happens all the time. Recently, the enemy media spread information that the Minister of Defense allegedly rejoiced that the Ukrainians had become a “shield” for NATO. The Russian propaganda does not ignore Volodymyr Zelenskyi either, reporting on cartoons on the covers of foreign magazines or that he and other officials increased their fortune in 2022.

The Russian media are massively spreading the news that American analysts “counted” Western volunteers participating in the war in Ukraine. The news claims that “the West is not only providing weapons, but also sending the military”. It's fake.

All this “news” refers to an article by The Washington Post, from which it is obvious that Western countries not only do not send their soldiers to Ukraine, but will also have a lot of problems in the future with people who voluntarily left to defend Ukraine. Firstly, because of the laws of some European countries that prohibit fighting for money in other armies (it is also prohibited in the USA). Secondly, the journalists of the American edition, after talking with volunteers, came to the conclusion that many of them ended up at the front, because their own states could not provide their veterans with the necessary level of support. That is, it is obvious that all these people went to war for personal reasons and no one “sent” them to Ukraine.

In addition, the article indicates the approximate numbers of warring foreigners - from 1,000 to 3,000, since the beginning of the war, about 1,000 were wounded, one hundred died.

All these data are approximate, the journalists could not get official data. But some Russian publications began to write that “out of 20,000 foreigners in Ukraine, only 3,000 remained”. This is another fiction: the figure of 20,000 volunteers and volunteers at the beginning of the war was voiced by representatives of the Ukrainian authorities, who claimed that approximately the same number of people responded to the call to defend Ukraine. In fact, this figure has never been confirmed by anyone. The Washington Post writes that most people who came to Ukraine have already returned home, but it is not known exactly how many of them.

Russian propaganda constantly speculates on the topic of foreign volunteers: since the beginning of the war, it has written that almost no one has come to Ukraine. Then, especially during the defeats at the front, the Russian media began to write that only foreigners were fighting against the Russians in Ukraine, and they were defeating the Russian army. The last such fake was spread by representatives of the illegal DNR group, claiming that it was foreigners who were fighting against them in Bakhmut. Thus, Russian propaganda is trying to convince the audience that Russia is fighting against NATO countries, and not against Ukraine. Although in any article devoted to foreign volunteers in Ukraine, it is immediately emphasized that the number of Ukrainian military is such that a thousand or even three thousand foreign volunteers cannot significantly affect the situation at the front.

Russian media, as well as social media users, are spreading information that President Zelenskyi allegedly admitted that the supply of Western tanks will not be able to change the situation at the front and turn the tide of the war. This is manipulation.

As StopFake writes, in an interview with the ARD TV channel, Zelenskyi said that Germany still cannot decide on the supply of Leopard tanks to Ukraine. He also said that the decision of an individual country to transfer or not to transfer a dozen tanks cannot significantly affect the course of the war:

“When they (the Russians) have a thousand tanks, not a single country that can give us 10 tanks, 20 tanks, 50 tanks, solves the problem. But they do one very important thing: they motivate our warriors to fight for their values, because they show that the whole world is with you”.

That is, it was about the decision of one country, specifically Germany, to provide or not provide tanks to Ukraine, and Zelenskyi's words are essentially a response to Olaf Scholz's frequent statements that Germany cannot provide Ukraine with heavy weapons because it is afraid to become a “party to the conflict”. Thus, Zelenskyi responded precisely to Scholz's words that Germany's decision would indeed not significantly affect the course of the war,  but the course of the war is influenced by the decisions of dozens of Ukraine's allied countries, and it is collective efforts (including providing tanks to Ukraine) that will help Ukraine win the war.

And it is even known exactly how many tanks Ukraine needs to return the territories occupied after February 24: in an interview with The Economist, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi said that this requires 300 tanks, about 700 infantry fighting vehicles and 500 howitzers.

By manipulating Zelenskyi's words, Russian propaganda is trying to convince the audience that Ukraine will not be able to win the war, despite any help from Western partners, and thereby influence public sentiment in Ukraine.

Such a message is spread by pro-Russian telegram channels after the meeting in the Ramstein format. Like, if earlier the President of Ukraine spoke about the liberation of the territories occupied by Russia, now he asks for weapons in order to “at least stop Russia”.

In fact, the rhetoric of the Ukrainian president has not changed. Russian propaganda manipulates Volodymyr Zelenskyi's quote from Ramstein speech. The propagandists took out of context a part of the speech with a call to “start a principled supply that will stop the Russian evil”. However, Zelenskyi's calls to guarantee the kind of artillery and air defense that would break terror and ensure victory were ignored. “So, let your decisions hit exactly! Just like our heroes are on the front line”, the President of Ukraine said.

Propagandists are systematically trying to discredit Volodymyr Zelenskyi both in Ukraine and abroad. Previously, they claimed that Zelenskyi signed the act of surrender during a visit to the United States. Allegedly, Zelenskyi could stop the war, but the West did not let him do it.

Pro-Russian and occupation telegram channels say that the Security service of Ukraine (SBU) arrested a resident of Kupiansk for baking and selling bread to locals during his stay under Russian occupation. Like, this is another act of the “terror of the Kyiv regime”. This is manipulation.

In fact, the former chief engineer of the Kupiansk bakery plant is accused of collaborating with the aggressor state. The detainee is accused of helping the Russians to export Ukrainian grain to the territory of Russia, to Rostov-on-Don.

As StopFake writes, the man not only openly supported the occupation authorities, but also forcibly took away the seals, stamps, statutory documents and personal files of employees from the chief accountant of the enterprise, and then handed them over to representatives of the occupation administration. For this, the occupation administration of Kupiansk appointed him the chairman of the “Food resources” enterprise created by the Russians, which exported Ukrainian grain from the temporarily occupied territory to Russia.

Russian propaganda systematically spreads fakes about the situation in the liberated territories of Ukraine. Earlier, they said that a pensioner from Kupiansk would be judged for organizing football matches during the occupation, and in Kherson, the Ukrainian military began repressions against civilians.