Propagandists began to spread false information in Russian media and social networks, allegedly during a social experiment in Kazakhstan, local residents ignored the Ukrainian flag, while the Russian flag, according to them, was actively raised. A corresponding video is attached as “confirmation” of this. “Once a Kazakh blogger conducted an experiment with the Ukrainian flag. No one picked it up, and people even walked on it. He did a new experiment in this place today. With the Russian flag! Bravo, Kazakhstan! Ordinary people understand that the truth is with Russia”, users wrote.

StopFake decided to check this information and found that it was not true.

Since neither Russian media nor social network users reported when and which blogger conducted such an experiment, the fact-checkers tried to find the original video on their own. In a Google search for the keywords “social experiment, Kazakhstan, flag”, they received many similar videos. Among them, on the baurzhan_89 TikTok account there are a large number of videos with a blogger who could also be seen in a propaganda video distributed.

On the page of the mentioned account there are also two videos with a social experiment of the blogger, where the Ukrainian and Russian flags lie on the floor, but with a longer timing than the propaganda showed. It turned out that in the video with the Ukrainian flag, propagandists cut out the part where people can be seen raising it. Also in the video with the Russian flag, footage of people passing by the tricolor was cut out. In general, in the original videos, people reacted about the same to the flags of both countries.

According to StopFake experts, Russian propaganda deliberately cut out the video in order to create another fake about the negative attitude towards Ukraine and Ukrainians in other countries of the world. StopFake also contacted the mentioned TikTok blogger. They asked him if he had seen the cropped videos with captions about “ignoring” the Ukrainian flag. To which the Tiktoker replied that he was outraged and added that “the video carries only patriotic and social content, and Kazakhstan people are for peace and a clear sky above their heads”. Upon request to give his first and last name, the blogger asked to simply indicate his nickname Baurzhan. S.