The Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) reported that Russian propagandists had spread false information about an incident in Chernivtsi, claiming that a Ukrainian serviceman shot a pensioner in the leg and brutally assaulted him for speaking Russian.

As “evidence”, the propagandists used an altered screenshot of a headline from a Ukrainian media outlet that had been manipulated using photo-editing software.

In reality, the incident in Chernivtsi was a domestic dispute: one of the participants injured the other with an air pistol, no one sustained serious injuries, and no connection to language use or involvement of a serviceman was established.

“Creating such fakes by altering headlines and distorting the content of real news stories is a typical tactic of Russian propaganda. The enemy uses these disinformation injections to discredit military personnel in the eyes of Ukrainian society and to provoke division between soldiers and civilians”, the statement says.

Fake stories involving language-related or everyday conflicts are designed to create the impression of tensions within Ukrainian society, where “citizens are against the army” and “Russian speakers are against Ukrainian speakers”. This is strategically beneficial for Russia: Ukraine’s internal cohesion is weakened, distrust in the military and the authorities increases, and support for mobilization and national defense becomes more difficult.

Such disinformation campaigns are often accompanied by forged screenshots, altered headlines, or images imitating reputable media outlets. This creates the effect of “legitimizing the fake”, as audiences see apparent “evidence” and are unable to immediately distinguish it from genuine news. In hybrid warfare, this is a method of creating “information events” that are perceived as facts.