Enemy fiends is a propaganda tactic in which propagandists spread messages, manipulations and fakes that hyperbolically emphasize the negative qualities of Ukrainians (aggressiveness, vindictiveness, cruelty, etc.). The goal is to prevent compassion for the Ukrainians, moreover, to encourage the Russians to go to war as a “sacred mission”.

Russian propaganda used this tactic in the summer when covering the explosions in the Crimea. They wrote that supposedly Ukrainians are happy that war has finally come to Crimea. Information about the explosions at the airport really caused a strong reaction on social networks. But emotions are caused, first of all, by the significant losses of the enemy, because at the airfield in the temporarily occupied Crimea, the Ukrainian military destroyed the composition of aviation weapons and about a dozen aircraft systematically patrolling the airspace on the territory of Ukraine.

Somewhat modified Russian propaganda used the tactic of fiends - Ukrainians after the events in Brovary on January 18th. Russian propaganda began to spread messages that Russians sympathize with the deaths of Ukrainian children, unlike Ukrainians. Like, the Russians understand that Ukrainian children are not to blame for anything, Ukrainians call for the destruction of Russian children so that “orcs do not grow out of them”. In fact, Ukrainians showed condolences to the Russians even after 2014. However, a full-scale invasion significantly changed the situation. As of January 2023, due to Russian aggression in Ukraine, at least 459 children were killed, more than 909 were injured of varying severity. These figures are not final, since Russian war crimes, including against children, are being recorded and investigated in places of war fights and in the liberated territories.

Russian propaganda tried to make the “Ukrainians” inhuman by spreading messages on religious topics. They say that the “Kyiv regime” has turned Ukraine into a “totalitarian hypersect”, professing “neopaganism” as the basis of “radical nationalism”. The Russians wrote that allegedly the number of “Satanist sects” in Ukraine is unknown, but the countdown “is definitely in the hundreds”. So Ukraine needs to be “desatanized” and “deshaitanized”.