Such information was disseminated on social networks, in particular, on telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is in fact “staged”. The authors of the fake message convince readers that there is no action on the part of the Ukrainian army, and they have been “defeated”  for a long time. As evidence, they allegedly refer to a news story filmed by Ukrainian media professionals. It explains that “war occurs in our minds”. It's a lie.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security explains that the story is compiled: it was assembled from different pieces of video, and not a single Ukrainian media outlet has produced such a video. Moreover, it is distributed only in the Russian segment of social networks.

Thus, the authors resort to typical conspiracy theories and seek to deny everything that is happening around them. Russian propaganda operates on this principle, for example, when it says that Ukraine supposedly does not exist, which means there are no wars, they are all theatrical. After all, the Kremlin's minions are trying to obscure reality.

By the way, in our Newspeak section we also analyzed how Russia seeks to deny the existence of Ukraine and blind the eyes of Russians and other peoples who do not perceive the Ukrainian state as an independent, sovereign state. Propagandists do this using the term “country 404”.