The Russian Defense Ministry stated that "in Sviatogorsk, Donetsk region, militants of nationalist battalions have deployed artillery on the territory of the Svyatogorsk Lavra monastery, and civilians are being held as 'human shields.'" Such warnings were issued by the Russians before the bombing. Earlier, the Russians carried out airstrikes on a maternity hospital and the Drama Theater in Mariupol, where Azov fighters were allegedly present.

Russians shelled the Sviatogorsk Lavra of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in the Donetsk region on March 12, 2022. At that time, the force of the explosion blew out window frames in the churches, and windows and doors in Lavra's hotels were broken. There were 520 refugees in Lavra, including 200 children and brothers of the monastery. They were evacuated to the monastery cellars.

After the explosion, Metropolitan Arseniy of Sviatogorsk, vicar of the Lavra, recorded a video appeal, in which he called on everyone in charge to stop bombing peaceful people in the peaceful cities of Ukraine. He did not name the perpetrators of the war - the Russian military and Putin.

The last time the Russians shelled the city of Sviatogorsk was on the morning of April 27, the chairman of the Sviatogorsk community, Volodymyr Bandura, said. He asked residents of the community to temporarily evacuate by free buses and trains, as the situation in the city was tense and explosions could be heard in the outskirts.

This is the thesis spread by Russian propagandists, claiming that Russia "adhered" to the rights of Ukrainians during the war, which Russia itself unleashed in Ukraine. According to StopFake, Russian "experts" complain that Russia "constantly" organizes humanitarian corridors for evacuations, but "Ukrainians intimidated by the West are afraid to use them. Russia also "categorically denies" that the Russian military was involved in the mass abuse of Ukrainians and the forced deportation of civilians to Russia. "In fact, a number of major media outlets, human rights organizations and global institutions are already collecting and processing data on countless war crimes committed by Russia on Ukrainian territory. A number of facts of illegal hijacking of Ukrainian civilians by Russian security forces, as well as facts of forced deportation of Ukrainian citizens to Russia have already been established," the fact checkers write. More details.

Telegram channels controlled by Russian special services, in particular Legitimny, are spreading a new message: it is necessary to surrender Ukrainian cities without a fight, because "Russia will get its own anyway," that is, occupy Ukrainian territories - but let it be better "like in Kherson than in Mariupol. ". At the same time, the messages of the telegram channels promote two theses: first, the occupied territories are "not bad," "social payments" are distributed there, and "almost everything works. Secondly, there is no point in resisting because Russia will win anyway.

Recall that the consequences of Russia's occupation of any Ukrainian cities are hundreds of murdered and tortured civilians, systematic kidnappings of activists and representatives of any government agencies, mass rapes, mass graves and looting or raiding.

Information about this is actively spreading in social networks. They say that since April 18, Ukrainians to cross the border with the countries of the European Union in the war must have a foreign passport. They say that, except in rare cases, they will no longer be able to travel with their internal Ukrainian documents. As the fact-checkers of the "Lozhnik" project write, such messages are spreading in particular in the Volyn segment of Facebook. Information that Ukrainians will now cross the border only with a foreign passport and indeed appeared in the media, however, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the possibility of crossing the border by citizens of Ukraine on internal passports continued. "This decision was made, given the situation on the territory of Ukraine during martial law, when the citizens of Ukraine can not quickly and timely issue a passport of a citizen of Ukraine to travel abroad (foreign passport)," - assure the Ministry. They add that it is due to humanitarian circumstances and the previously reached agreements with neighboring countries, the employees of the border department will pass citizens of Ukraine, including with the internal passport document. This applies to all citizens, regardless of the regions from which they are coming. That is, as of April 20, Ukrainians can travel abroad without a passport.

According to the Security Service of Ukraine, such information is spreading on the network the other day. They say that the Ukrainian army will arrange staging in order to discredit the Russian. In such messages, the authors of the anonymous telegram channels refer to the data of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Security Service of Ukraine denies such information. As a reminder, Russian propaganda has already repeatedly reported about the so-called provocations of the Ukrainian army, and after some time committed war crimes at the locations mentioned in the messages. Such provocations by Russia are sometimes reported by the Center for Counteracting Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council. In particular, Russia recently reported about so-called terrorist attacks from Ukraine on Russian territory. According to the Center, the enemy may commit a series of terrorist acts on the Russian border consolidation of Russians against Ukrainians.

This information is distributed in anonymous telegram channels. In particular, on the channel "News of Ukraine 24/7". Each Ukrainian woman and child will receive weekly certain monetary aid, and in addition, people will also be able to receive financial assistance from the United Nations - five thousand hryvnias.

As the fact checkers of the "Brekhunets" project write, this is not true. There is no information about this on the official resources of the Ukrainian authorities. Accordingly, we can conclude that the message is false. "As for monetary support to Ukrainians from the UN, indeed, on April 15, the government of Ukraine and the United Nations launched two programs for payments to internally displaced persons in need of additional protection," the fact checkers report.

The Russian media and the Russian Foreign Ministry are spreading information that the Ukrainian army is using ambulances to transport armed soldiers. Along with the thesis that the Ukrainian military is allegedly hiding in ambulances, they spread a fragment of the Al Jazeera story, which "accidentally filmed armed men in camouflage getting out of the ambulance" allegedly in Nikolaev. According to StopFake, Russian media only show a short excerpt from the nearly three-minute Al Jazeera report in order to conceal the full context. In fact, the story was filmed not in Nikolaev, but in Kiev during the evacuation of civilians from Irpen in late March. The Ukrainian military accompanied the evacuees and ensured their safety en route. In his inclusion, Al Jazeera reporter Mahmoud Zaibak says that the Ukrainian army helped with the evacuation. In addition, on March 27, The Washington Post published an article and video report on the evacuation from Irpen. Judging by the visual elements of the report, it was filmed in the same place as the Al Jazeera story.

Fraudsters have created a fake website similar to the website of the "Help is easy!" program, which is a charity foundation of PrivatBank.

The bank's press service warns that the fake copy aims to steal personal financial data of Ukrainians.

"PrivatBank does not make benefit payments through websites! The bank's charity programs work to provide centralized assistance to the AFU and humanitarian organizations.

If you received notifications about such fakes, you should by no means follow the link to fraudulent resources! We do not work to stop and eliminate this and similar fraudulent resources," - say the bank.

The Russian media and pro-Kremlin telegram channels are reporting en masse that U.S. President Joe Biden is suffering from health problems, which is why he will not visit Ukraine. He seems to be a "puppet" and the country is run by those who are in the shadow of his "sick figure".

Such fakes intensified after Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in Ukraine genocide and that the US president was ready to come to Ukraine.

On 14 April, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Joe Biden said that he was ready to personally come to Ukraine.

Later, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that Joe Biden is "ready for anything," he is "ready to go to Ukraine. That's right. He is," but so far the White House is not sending the president to Ukraine.

She said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the eight-hour train ride "through a war zone" to get to central Ukraine. "So no, that's not part of the United States president's plan. We should all, perhaps, feel relieved about that. He's got a few more things to do," Psaki stated.

In March 2022, Biden visited Poland and the town of Rzeszow near the Ukrainian border. He expressed disappointment that he could not enter the country to see the consequences of the Russian invasion.

On April 14, U.S. Senator Steve Daines and members of the House of Representatives Victoria Spartz visited Kiev and its suburbs that have been occupied by Russian troops on Thursday, becoming the first U.S. officials to visit since the war began.

This was the thesis recently circulated by pro-Russian telegram channels. The messages said that "attitudes toward Ukrainians have already turned cold everywhere. They say that the attitude towards refugees from Ukraine will now significantly worsen, as well as the amount of support they receive. "Three to four more months and the situation will become even worse towards Ukrainians," the reports say. However, their authors do not specify the bad attitude in which countries they are talking about and draw their conclusions referring to some anonymous sources. The reports also add that it is now very difficult for Ukrainians to find work in the West, although there are seasonal jobs in the agricultural sector, but there are "hellish conditions" and low pay. In fact, such information is spread in order to discredit countries that are allies of Ukraine and to devalue their assistance to Ukrainian refugees. In fact, in many EU countries Ukrainians can receive state aid as refugees. Moreover, Ukrainians are also helped by residents of those countries. As a reminder, during the month, Russian propaganda had already spread several fakes about "bad refugees" from Ukraine, which were refuted.

In particular, Russian propaganda media reported on the shelling by Ukraine of a border guard unit in Kursk Region, bordering Sumy Region. According to the Center for Countering Disinformation, as of April 14, there had already been several "terrorist attacks" on the Russian border, which the Russian leadership accuses of being carried out by Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups. In addition to the "terrorist attack" in Kursk Region, the Russian Federal Security Service reported that on April 14, a border checkpoint in Bryansk Region was shelled from Ukraine, which damaged two vehicles, but no one was injured. The so-called terrorist attacks from Ukraine as a method of provocation were reported the other day by the Center for Counteracting Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. According to the Center, the enemy will carry out a series of terrorist acts at the Russian border consolidation of Russians against Ukrainians.

After pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk was detained, anonymous telegram channels controlled by the Russian special services launched a series of manipulative messages designed to undermine Ukrainians' trust in the authorities. For the most part, these messages and theories are built on assumptions, such as "Medvedchuk is wearing a new uniform, which means that his things are not suitable for photographing. In fact, the new uniforms can't prove that Medvedchuk's things are "unsuitable for photographing. Moreover, there is no evidence that he was dressed up on purpose. Earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that Medvedchuk tried to disguise himself as a Ukrainian military man by wearing a uniform and crossing the Ukrainian border. It is noteworthy that the telegram channels avoid affirmative sentences and build messages on assumptions: "Zelenskyy knew about the start time of the attack on February 24, so the SBU could calmly take Medvedchuk to a safe place."

In addition, the telegram channels use the prefix "gossip" for their manipulations, after which one can write anything and retract his words if necessary. For example, "weaved in that the Russians knew that Medvedchuk was in the SBU, and negotiations on his exchange were unsuccessful. If Russia really did not plan to exchange Putin's cousin for Ukrainian defenders, it would mean that the Kremlin is not interested in Medvedchuk's future fate. If so, Russia, which keeps trying to discredit the Ukrainian authorities, would benefit from publicly stating that Medvedchuk is being held by Ukrainian law enforcers, as opposed to fleeing Ukraine's official statements. Medvedchuk's wife, host Oksana Marchenko, who recorded an April 13 address to Vladimir Zelensky, may also have previously claimed that her husband had disappeared. She, like the pro-Russian TV channels, says that Medvedchuk is allegedly "illegally detained by the SBU." Recall that Medvedchuk was announced suspicions and the court selected preventive measures in the criminal proceedings on oil and gas extraction in the Black Sea and on aiding the activities of a terrorist organization through the supply of coal from the occupied territories of Donbass. He should be under house arrest, but escaped from his estate, thereby violating the obligations under the preventive measure.

This assertion is spreading en masse on social networks. In particular, the posts quote an excerpt from an interview of a "refugee from Ukraine" to Spanish television, in which he allegedly admits the torture of civilians by Ukrainian border guards. According to StopFake, the video begins with a guest in a news program on the Antena television channel saying that he and eight other men on the border between Ukraine and Poland allegedly "wanted to be beaten" by Ukrainian border guards. Based on this statement, network users write that Oleh - that is the name of the program's guest - confirms the torture of civilians by Ukrainian "security forces". However, as the fact checkers point out, the circulating excerpt of the interview is taken out of context and misleads network users. "From the full version of Oleh's interview we learn that the man had already made several unsuccessful attempts to leave Ukraine at the time of the interview. According to him, he and several other men tried to cross first the Ukrainian-Hungarian border and then the Ukrainian-Polish border through different checkpoints, but Ukrainian border guards refused him the right to leave Ukraine. He claims that he could not leave the country for 6 days because of the actions of the officers of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, who sent him for questioning, behaved very rudely to him, threw his passport in his face, etc. In fact, the actions of the border guards complied with the norms of the Ukrainian wartime legislation, and the statement about the order not to let all the men leave the country was not true at all," the fact checkers wrote. More details.

Information that these banks have cancelled credit vacations for their customers is spreading in social networks, in particular in telegram channels. The message says that these banks are now writing off interest on loans, driving Ukrainians into "minus". However, as the fact checker of the project "Spooner" found out, this is a manipulation. "Credit vacations are preferential terms of the contract, when customers have the right not to make the mandatory minimum payment, which is especially relevant in the case of being in a war zone or due to loss of income. PrivatBank's credit vacations for credit cards are valid till June 1, 2022. So, we can conclude that the credit vacations - it is preferential terms of the contract, when customers have the right not to make the mandatory minimum payment, the bank will not penalize for late payments, but they do not mean the absence of interest for the use of credit funds. We also could not find information on the cancellation of credit vacations on the Monobank's website," write the fact checkers.

PrivatBank explained that it continues to be fully responsible for the deposits of Ukrainians regardless of the circumstances and adds that the standard terms of the card grace period remain unchanged. "Credit vacations do not mean no interest for the use of credit funds," explains the speaker of PrivatBank Dokia Kuzmenko. However, in addition to the "vacations," in March PrivatBank set a credit rate of 0.001%, practically making the use of credit funds free. "We did this to support all of our customers and being aware of the more pressing problems facing the country. Our bank and customers understand that the banking system has to work to provide a front and a rear. The economic front is also very important to winning. And that's why, as of April 1, we partially brought back some rates, while reducing them from the pre-war level. For example, now we set the preferential credit rate at 1.7%, which is half as much as before the war. Interest will still be charged in May, but repayment will not be obligatory until June 1 under the credit vacations," the bank explained to the fact checkers. Accordingly, the message that banks canceled the credit vacations and accrued interest, which "drive Ukrainians into deficit," is now a manipulation.

According to Euvsdisinfo, Russian propaganda, with the help of trolls, once again tried to blow up Polish support for Ukraine. On April 4-5, when the world learned about the Russian military crimes in Bucza, Poland faced a large-scale troll attack that had at least three dimensions: Polish officials were sent threatening emails, the media were spammed, and social media once again stepped up discussion of the Volyn tragedy. Such a campaign of disinformation and manipulation was not only primitive and awkward, but also failed to take into account the current mood in Polish society. The current situation obviously irritates the Kremlin. 2.6 million Ukrainian refugees entered Poland after Russia attacked Ukraine, and now Ukrainians in Poland are receiving very large amounts of aid. While the Russian war machine tries to bomb more Ukrainians into leaving their homes, the Kremlin disinformation machine will probably continue to manipulate difficult topics, using tropes of racism, xenophobia and painful events from the past, as it did in the case of the Volhynia tragedy. to discredit Ukrainians," the newspaper wrote.

In such messages, propagandists claim that "Ukrainian nationalists" and, in particular, the Azov regiment defending Mariupol allegedly seized two foreign vessels in the Sea of Azov - the "Tsarevna" and the "Lady Augusta" and respectively - are holding their crews hostage. According to StopFake, propagandists also claim that the Azov regiment is allegedly firing mortars at civilian ships, preventing the evacuation of their crews. In fact, this is not true. According to StopFake, the information that Azov allegedly seized the Tzarevna was denied by two Bulgarian ministries at once - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense. StopFake was also unable to find any facts confirming the seizure of the ship Lady Augusta. "In addition, human rights activists have repeatedly recorded the fact that civilian ships were fired upon by Russian troops," the fact checkers wrote.

This is the information spread by pro-Russian telegram channels. However, according to the UN Refugee Agency, as of March 30, 4 million people - about 10% of Ukraine's total population - had left Ukraine abroad, and at least 6.5 million more had been forced to leave their homes and moved to other areas of Ukraine. . Therefore, the statements from pro-Russian telegram channels cannot be trusted, because it is not known where the propagandists got the figure of 8 million from, and as of what date they recorded such data. Recall that in such cases, only data from official sources should be considered. In addition, according to a Razumkov Center survey, as of April 5, 79% of refugees from Ukraine plan to return home after the war ends. In reports that many propagandists also claim that this is the so-called "Zelenskyy arithmetic," as if blaming the Ukrainian authorities for this situation. However, people did not leave Ukraine en masse until Russia launched a full-scale invasion and began killing Ukrainian civilians and military personnel.

Such a thesis is spreading in propaganda telegram channels. The messages claim that the media will soon begin to disperse information about the tragedy in Borodyanka in order to blame the Russian military, which recently left the settlement. The propaganda statements assure that the Ukrainian and Western media will claim that things in Borodyanka are even worse than in Bucha and claim that allegedly, according to eyewitness accounts, it was not the Russians but the Ukrainian army that shelled the residential quarters of the settlement with grads. The reports add that it does not appear from the photos currently coming from Borodyanka that there were any dead, and that is what the national police allegedly said as well, but "if the Western media write, then there will be." In fact, according to Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, Borodyanka is one of the most destroyed settlements in the Kyiv region. Locals tell how planes came in the first days of the war and fired rockets from a low height at these houses. And it was possible to save those people who were under those rubble... But the rescuers were shelled again and after that they had no access to the place. We understand that now there are no living people left here," Monastyrskyi said. As a reminder, after the photos from the destroyed Bucha were made public, after Russian troops left there, propagandists also claimed that it was all just a ruling to discredit the Russian military.

Russian propaganda spreads a fake that "Western countries supply low-quality and outdated weapons to Ukraine," or that "it is simply impossible to stop cruise missile strikes with Javelin and Stinger. The Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council denied these reports, recalling that since February 25, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has regularly reported on downed Russian cruise missiles: over the Vinnitsa, Kherson, Kharkov, and Nikolaev regions. "In this way the aggressor is trying to sow panic among the population. Having met resistance in the temporarily occupied territories, the enemy resorts to information terrorism in order to demoralize Ukrainians and stop their resistance, the Center said. - In this way, the enemy is probably already preparing the information field for victorious messages about "new liberated settlements in Donbass, which will be presented as territories under temporary occupation since 2014".

Anonymous telegrams controlled by Russian special services spread the message that "Ukraine has already lost those who were forced to go abroad. These manipulative messages state that "data from sociologists" show that Ukrainians who were forced to leave for Western countries because of Russia's war do not plan to return. In fact, Razumkov Center polls show that 79 percent of refugees plan to return to Ukraine after the war ends, 11 percent of Ukrainians are hesitant and only 10 percent do not plan to return. According to the UN, as of April 3, the number of Ukrainian refugees exceeded 4.2 million.

The Russian Defense Ministry and Russian propagandists spread this message, announcing their plans to "clean up the city". In fact, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is ready to evacuate the wounded and dead from Mariupol, and Turkey can also provide ships for evacuation of the inhabitants of the city by sea. However, Russia has not yet given its consent. "It is impossible to reach Mariupol. And they [representatives of Turkey] can go from Berdyansk, and you understand that it is still necessary to get to Berdyansk. In other words, we have all the infrastructure ready to transport the wounded and killed, and we are waiting for Putin's agreement. I talked to Erdogan, and Erdogan talks to him and now it's up to him [Putin] to make this happen," Zelenskyy said. In addition, the Ukrainian Security Service reported that the Russian occupants are preparing a large-scale provocation in Mariupol, in order to blame Ukraine for the alleged murder of civilians. According to the SBU, the occupants are preparing a large-scale fabrication: they plan to collect in one place the bodies of the Mariupol residents killed by the Russians themselves, and present them as "mass victims of the Ukrainian troops".

This is the claim of the French far-right politician Erika Zemmour, whose words are actively circulated in the Russian press. In fact, the leader of the Reconquista political party and candidate for the French presidency in 2022 is lying. Like his party colleague Marion Maréchal, back in early March she said that among the refugees from Ukraine "one-third are Africans and natives of North Africa". She, in turn, referred to an article in the newspaper Figaro, where the only anonymous source of the publication gave similar data. But according to the official statistics of the French Interior Ministry, of 26,000 people who arrived in France before March 31 as refugees from the war with Russia, less than 5% are not "Europeans". This data is given by the French radio RTL, which conducted its own fact-checking of the statements of far-right politicians. The article does not specify who these people are - foreign students who evacuated to Europe or citizens of Ukraine.

A video is floating on social networks that shows as if refugees from Ukraine have defaced a German train. In the video, a man from Germany complains that the Ukrainians left a lot of garbage in the cabin of the train and painted the walls with graffiti and pasted all kinds of stickers. However, according to VoxCheck, this is a fake. The train was not carrying refugees from Ukraine, but soccer fans. Read more.

Those statements are spread by russian propagandists in mass media and social networks stating that on March 28 the Ukrainian side started fire from small arms and mortars in the Summy and Zaporizhzhya directions, disrupting the evacuation of civilians.

According to the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, this is not true as there were no humanitarian corridors on that day. “Iryna Vereshchuk, the minister for Reintegration of the Temporary Occupied Territories claimed that due to the security reasons on March 28, 2022 the humanitarian corridors will not be open”, the center reports.

That's what Russian propagandists say. This is a picture from the children's hospital in Zaporizhzhia, which shows a 13-year-old girl Milena, who was evacuated from Mariupol. After receiving a bullet wound to the jaw, she was placed in a medical coma.

However, Russian propagandists claim that the photo does not show a wounded girl from Mariupol. "Ukrainian media are spreading this photo with a description that it is a hospital in Zaporizhia, where the wounded are brought from Mariupol. However, the affected civilians from Mariupol are constantly being taken to hospitals in Russia and the "DPR". Other refugees from this city are leaving for these territories, "the propagandists write. According to StopFake, this statement is not valid. The injured girl in the photo lying by the barricaded window was evacuated from Mariupol to the Zaporizhzhia Children's Hospital. This photo by William Keo appeared on March 20 on the French website Liberation in a report from the Zaporizhzhia hospital. The article is about children and teenagers who managed to be taken out of the besieged Mariupol.