This message was spread by several Russian propaganda media, including TARS, Life, EADaily, RIA Novosti, OSN, Fifth Channel, and others. According to Stopfake fact-checkers, the propagandists refer to an interview of Vitaliy Ganchev, a Kharkiv collaborator appointed by the Russian occupation authorities as the so-called "head of the temporary civil administration" in the occupied part of the Kharkiv region.

No authorities of the Kharkiv region have made statements about the region's desire to join Russia. The Russian mass media spread the quote only by supporting the occupiers, a collaborator, Vitaliy Ganchev. The Russian authorities appointed him "the head of the temporary civil administration of the Kharkiv region." However, it is a fictitious body, just like the "position," and they have nothing to do with the official Ukrainian authorities. Vitaliy Ganchev is accused of treason and collaborative activity (Part 2 of Article 111, Part 5 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) - on April 21, the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office notified him of the suspicion in absentia. The press service of the prosecutor's office reports that the man voluntarily went to cooperate with the occupiers.

The statement that residents of the occupied part of the Kharkiv region want to join Russia has no factual basis. The head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, Oleg Synegubov, reported at the beginning of July that the occupiers temporarily control approximately 30% of the region's territory - part of the border areas in the north and the eastern provinces from Volchansk to Izyum. After a part of the region was occupied at the beginning of spring, people wanted to leave the territories temporarily under the control of the Russians and return to the cities under the supervision of Ukraine, Kharkiv RSA reports.

A recent sociological survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), which was conducted on May 13-18, 2022, showed that the absolute majority of citizens who continue to live in the occupied territory after February 24, 2022 - 82% - have a negative attitude towards Russia and only 6% have a positive attitude.