Pro-Russian telegram channels write about this. According to one of the propagandists, the alleged number of deserters in the Armed Forces of Ukraine has increased after the statement of the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, about the losses of Ukrainian troops. This is not true, according to the Center for Counteracting Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

By spreading this fake, Russian propaganda uses the tactics of reflection. According to British intelligence, it is Russia that is creating "protective detachments" to catch deserters among its own soldiers, fleeing because of low morale and unwillingness to fight.

 Such information is disseminated by pro-Russian telegram channels. Allegedly, this was said in an interview with “HB” (NV) radio by the commander of the volunteer battalion "Svoboda" (Freedom), captain of the National Guard of Ukraine Petro Kuzyk. In fact, Kuzyk didn't say that. The propagandists took the sentence out of context and changed it to their advantage. In an interview with Kuzyk, the word “they” means Russians. The commander was asked about the human losses near Bakhmut, where the enemy is trying to attack. “They are huge. They don't even count the body. Fields, landings in front of positions, all littered with corpses. I watched them: they dragged somebody to bury, pulled off a warm sweater from him and began to put them on right there”, said Kuzyk. One of the popular tactics of Russian propagandists is to distort the words of the Ukrainian military and pass off Russian defeats as Ukrainian ones. Thus, they are trying to hide the fact that Russian soldiers have always been “meat” for the Kremlin and that behind each of their attacks on Ukrainian soil, there are hundreds of dead Russians who will never be buried. 

Such messages are distributed by pro-Russian telegram channels. Like, not only the Ukrainian authorities, but also Western politicians know the truth about the “shocking” losses of the Ukrainian army. However, this truth is hidden from Ukrainians. Like, Ursula von der Leyen let slip about the losses, but the video of the performance was immediately corrected.

Thus, Russian propaganda uses the tactics of reflection. In practice, the expression " No losses in the armed forces of Russia" from the very beginning of the great war became a meme. It was Russia that for a long time did not recognize its losses, and subsequently significantly underestimated them. At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities have never denied the losses, moreover, they emphasize the price that Ukraine pays every day, although they do not clearly state the number of dead.

Social networks and pro-Russian telegram channels are circulating a collage of photos of one woman putting makeup that looks like wounds on the face of another. The last photo shows how three people allegedly provide medical assistance to the injured person. In the captions to the photo, they note that this is how the Ukrainian military is supposedly preparing “fakes” with the victims. Like, these photos were received from the phone of “employees of the Ukrainian Center for Information and Psychological Operations (CIPsO)”. It's fake.

In fact, the photo shows medical assistance training from military doctors in 2016. The VoxCheck fact checker, using PimEyes, a people-search service on the web, and a reverse search in Google Images, found the original photos and the names of the people on them. These are representatives of TacCat, a Ukrainian organization that conducts first aid courses, held, in particular, with the help of paint and mannequins.

Russian propagandists write about this on social networks. Allegedly, citizens of Ukraine are being detained and accused of collaborating with the Russian occupiers.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that such information is not true.

Such posts are periodically shared on social networks. They add that these are allegedly Ukrainian servicemen and women who went to defend their country. Sometimes photos of injured people are distributed with such captions. Like, the military is losing limbs protecting all of us, and no one welcomes them. However, these are not always true photos.

Fact checkers of the project “Beyond the News” recorded the re-circulation of a photograph of a man with amputated legs and the caption “this hero defended his homeland. Today is his birthday. No one wished him a happy birthday". The post was liked by 3.5 thousand people, and shared by almost a thousand. A 33-year-old Mark Camamile from the UK is in the picture. In 2016, he came down with what he thought was the flu. However, when Mark went to the hospital, he was diagnosed with pneumonia, which developed into a rare form of septicemia. As a result, the man had to amputate both legs and his right arm.

The motivation for spreading photos with fake comments is unclear. Fact checkers suggest that because of such messages they want to arouse depressive moods in people, such as “our heroes risk their lives, die, but at the same time no one remembers them, no one needs them”. In general, a lot of messages are distributed on social networks with requests to congratulate strangers, especially children or military personnel, on some occasions: their birthday, marriage or other holidays. We urge you to check the information in such messages so as not to become part of incomprehensible manipulations.

Earlier, Detector Media talked about a similar case when they asked to greet a dead military man on his birthday. Fake photos of supposedly Ukrainian soldiers who sleep in snowdrifts during the war are also being distributed. 

Russian media write about this with reference to the words of collaborator Rohov. Like, the Ukrainian authorities use people as a human shield to cover military facilities. Allegedly, even large families, the elderly, and students were banned from leaving. Allegedly, in Zaporizhzhia, the Armed Forces of Ukraine use the “layer cake” tactics, when the military live surrounded by civilians, and the military depots are surrounded by civilian objects. It is not true.

There are no restrictions for residents of Zaporizhzhia to travel within Ukraine or abroad. For example, there are available tickets on the Ukrzaliznytsia website. For the security of Ukrainians, there are restrictions on leaving for the occupied territories after the shelling of a column of civilians at the checkpoint on October 2. Propagandists also systematically report that supposedly Ukrainian servicemen are hiding behind the civilian population. However, such information is denied every time by local authorities.

Pro-Russian websites continue to write about the alleged conflict between the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi. This time the propagandists used an article from the British daily newspaper Financial Times "We hit them with slingshots': Ukraine's iron general shows his mettle" to make their lies more convincing.

Like, in the publication "a lot of attention is paid to the issue of the conflict between Zaluzhnyi and Zelenskyi".

The Financial Times article dedicated to Valerii Zaluzhnyi describes Zaluzhnyi's qualities, his tactics and style, thanks to which the Ukrainian army so successfully liberated Kherson and the Kharkiv region, and was able to defend Kyiv. They also mentioned his biography, how the general reached his current role, and what experience he had before.

The publication has no facts about the conflict with President Zelenskyi, but only suggests anonymous sources that Zaluzhnyi was asked to bring down his level of publicity. At the same time, the article further states that the General himself does not attribute victory and success in battles with the Russian army to himself, and does not lose the opportunity to thank the soldiers for their contribution to the future victory.

Allegedly, this was stated at a briefing by the Chairman of the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, General Mark Milley, Russian websites reported. They say that the American military department calls the chances of success of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the battlefield "low".

General Milli didn't actually say that. He only suggested that the likelihood that Ukraine will liberate all of its territory exclusively by military means in the next few weeks is negligible. At the same time, Milley stressed that the likelihood of a Russian victory over Ukraine is "close to zero" because Russia has not achieved its strategic goals in Ukraine, and now cannot achieve its operational and tactical goals as well.

For the past few years, as soon as the first snow falls, a photo of a man sleeping outdoors in the snow has been circulating on social networks. Allegedly, this is a Ukrainian military man and this is the “price of free Ukraine”.

This is a photo fake. Analysts at Beyond the News found that the photographs are at least 10 years old and were taken before the Russian-Ukrainian war. It is not the Ukrainian military, but depicts the training of the so-called Russian special forces for survival.

Previously, this photo illustrated tearful Ukrainian poetry, messages raising funds for warm clothes for the Ukrainian military, patriotic messages in Georgian “about the price of peace” and even news from December 2014 that “ATO soldiers spend the night in the trenches under a “blanket” from the snow".

This was reported in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. A recently updated version of this system was successfully presented at the annual NATO Tide Sprint conference of experts and developers. Shortly thereafter, the enemy began to attack the system and disseminate information through a network of propaganda resources about the alleged kink and access to its data in order to discredit it. The information systems and tools used by the Ukrainian defenders are a strategic target for the enemy, as is the country's critical or energy infrastructure. The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reports that now the system is working stably, the data in it is securely protected, no unauthorized intrusions have been recorded. IT developers and cybersecurity specialists monitor hostile activity in real time.

In the Russian and Georgian segments of Facebook, a Tiktok video is being shared, in which a man dressed in a Ukrainian military uniform walks through the forest and portrays suffering on camera. In the posts accompanying this video, it is explained that this is apparently how Ukrainian propaganda works, which tries to convince Europe of the successes of the Armed Forces and the heroic struggle of the Ukrainian military by shooting staged videos. In fact, as the fact-checking project Mythdetector found out, the video is a fragment of the filming of a music video by Ukrainian singer Hanna Hanina. There is a real Ukrainian actor in the video, and his name is Petro Sherekin. He lives in Germany. The video shows that these are staged shots, but they don't try to pass them off as actual filming by the Ukrainian military or to use them for propaganda purposes. It is just filming the workflow while working on the song "Kolyskova" music video.

During the air alert throughout Ukraine (October 19), pro-Russian Telegram channels spread messages that allegedly the Ukrainian air defense couldn't cope with mass shelling. The Ukrainian authorities allegedly inform about the work of the Air Defense Forces, and local officials deliberately write about it. Then the authorities wait until the missiles hit the target. If the witnesses don't record the "arrivals" on video, they report that they have successfully shot down all aerial targets. Telegram users deny the propaganda message. At the same time, many channels that report on explosions and air raids post numerous photos of the work of Ukrainian air defense in the sky. There are also messages about the operation of air defense systems from users (without identification of the systems` location).

Russian propaganda manipulates official sources' reports to spread panic among the townspeople directly during the shelling.

Russian media spread such reports, allegedly quoting the commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Serhii Nayev. Serhii Nayev allegedly believes that with the joint efforts of Russia and Belarus, it will take no more than two to three months to "capture" Kyiv. It is manipulation.

In fact, Serhii Nayev spoke about the situation on the border with Belarus on the air of the national telethon. He noted that the accumulation of Russian equipment and troops together with the armed forces of Belarus indicates the possibility of a repeated attack on Kyiv. Nayev added that the Ukrainian military constantly monitors the level of this threat, and appropriate countermeasures are taken. According to Nayev, Ukraine is now ready for a possible attack from Belarus. Russian propaganda distorted the commander's words of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine about a potential threat and gave the desired information as facts. The fact-checkers of the StopFake project drew attention to the manipulation. Russian propaganda uses the possible joining of the Belarusian army in hostilities as a tactic to lure Ukrainians.

During the massive rocket attacks on October 10, Russian propaganda spread fakes that simultaneously with the rocket attacks on the cities of Ukraine, an offensive from Belarus and along the entire front line began. Propagandists also claim that Ukraine is trying in every possible way to draw Belarus into the war.

Pro-Russian Telegram channels spread this information to discredit Ukrainian volunteers. Voluntary donations won't allegedly save the country, whose economy is bursting at the seams, and foreign partners are in no hurry to support it. In this way, Russian propaganda promotes another message - Ukraine isn't supported in the West.

Propagandists suggest buying gas stoves, firewood, and generators instead of donating to the army because this will allegedly help "as soon as tomorrow." The fact that it is necessary to prepare for winter doesn't exclude the need for help from the army. Artificial confrontation is one of the common tactics of propagandists. Moreover, propaganda writes that donations of 200-300-400 hryvnias "only create an emotional background," but any amount of help is important, saves lives, and helps the Ukrainian army. One of the reasons for the active discrediting of the volunteer movement was the record collection of funds for the purchase of drones for the Ukrainian army. At first, the propagandists accused Serhiy Prytula and Serhiy Sternenko of "cynically collecting money" during the attacks. Then began a wave of discrediting the actual drones that were planned to be purchased. Both their cost and technical characteristics were manipulated in the messages. In this way, the propagandists tried to show the allegedly dishonest work of Ukrainian volunteers and the ineffectiveness of spending the collected funds. Moreover, propagandists often manipulate the topic of reporting in the work of volunteers; allegedly, not all reports on the purchase of equipment or certain devices for the army can be made public through social networks because the enemy can use this information. However, propagandists manipulate emotions by leaving facts out of context. Since 2014, the Ukrainian volunteer movement has supported the Ukrainian army significantly. That is why propagandists try in every possible way to devalue and discredit the work of volunteers. More details.

Pro-Russian Telegram channels and media write about this. The Russian army is allegedly opposed not by the Armed Forces, but by foreigners, "NATO armies", "battalions of Poles", etc. According to Russian intelligence, the Ukrainian army is currently filled with foreign mercenaries by 30%, and soon the number will exceed 50%. That's when the message will allegedly be made that NATO troops are fighting in Ukraine. It is a fake.

According to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, about 700,000 Ukrainian soldiers are resisting Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The number of foreign volunteers is estimated from several hundred to several thousand people and can`t be "half" of the Armed Forces.

In August 2022, the General Staff of the Armed Forces reported that no more than 100 foreign servicemen are serving in the Ukrainian army under contract. As StopFake writes, in March 2022, about 20,000 volunteers applied to participate in the International Legion of Terror Defense of Ukraine. The legion includes fighters from all continents. The largest number of representatives are from the USA, Great Britain, Poland, the Baltic countries, Canada, Norway, Finland, and Denmark. In general, it is 70–80% of foreign volunteers. According to the Embassy of Ukraine in the USA, more than three thousand Americans applied to join the Legion. However, the final number of foreigners is not announced by the military command for security reasons. The indicated numbers are only applications, and it is unknown how many of those who expressed a desire to go to the front actually went to fight.

Russian propaganda spreads fakes that the NATO army is allegedly opposing them in Ukraine to justify the failures of their army for the Russians. Moreover, the agitprop said that allegedly the Ukrainian military can`t reach the level of military training according to NATO standards. Furthermore, the successful counteroffensive of the Armed Forces is due to the Pentagon's direct participation in the development of the plan.

Propaganda anonymous Telegram channels spread this photo fact.

In fact, the Russians drew the "swastika" on the bracelet of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, themselves, using a compressed image, which made the Scandinavian symbol distorted. Journalist Roman Tsymbalyuk pointed out the propagandists' lies in his Telegram channel. "The Russian conscript is assured to give his life for Zaluzhnyi's bracelet. If so, let them take a closer look at what he looks like before he leaves for the other side of the Kerch Strait in a black bag," he wrote and published a photo of an analog of Zaluzhnyi's bracelet.

The tragic news was spread by Russian propaganda media and pro-Russian bloggers concerning Rodion Miroshnyk, who calls himself the ambassador of the occupied part of the Luhansk region. It allegedly happened near Kupiansk. The wounded were taken to a hospital in Luhansk.

During the spread of other fake, the propagandists made several inaccuracies. As fact-checkers from the "Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center" reported, all reports of this type do not contain videos and photos from the "place of the event". All illustrative photos used by propagandists have nothing to do with this fake.

The Kremlin propaganda media could not determine the date of the "shelling" and, at the same time, claimed that it was September 29, September 27, and September 25.

Propagandists are confused about the types of weapons with which they allegedly "shelled the column of refugees." Some talk about firearms, and some - about artillery.

The Security Service of Ukraine confirmed that at the end of September, in the so-called "grey zone" between the occupied Svatov in the Luhansk region and the liberated Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, the Russians shelled a civilian convoy of seven cars.

"At least 20 people died, including 10 children. A brutal attack on civilians was made by a sabotage and reconnaissance group of the occupiers - they shelled six old cars and one Gazelle truck closely with firearms. The enemy once again proved that his goal was the destruction of all Ukrainians, regardless of age and gender. The occupiers are defeated on the battlefield and respond to these losses and hopelessness by murdering civilians" said the acting head of SSU Vasyl Malyuk.

Such "news" of Russian propaganda is another attempt by the Kremlin to accuse the Ukrainian army of "atrocities" typical of the Russian military. On September 30, due to a Russian rocket attack on a civilian humanitarian convoy in Zaporizhzhia, which was trying to leave for the occupied territory, 30 people died, and almost a hundred were injured.

Anonymous Telegram channels promote the thesis that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is the return of territories, not the liberation of people.

For example, the Ukrainian military scares residents with death who do not meet them with flags and pancakes. Moreover, they also do not let people go into the territory occupied by Russia, shooting cars on the road.

Propagandists began to actively reproduce these thoughts after the SSU discovered a convoy of cars shelled by the Russians in the so-called "gray zone" in the Kharkiv region, where 20 people died, including 10 children, as well as after a convoy of cars was shot by Russian missiles in Zaporizhzhia, where were mostly locals who transported humanitarian aid to their relatives in the occupied territory.

People with different views remained alive in the liberated Ukrainian military towns and villages: some were waiting for the Ukrainian army, and others wanted to return to the USSR and spoke favorably of the Russian occupiers. However, no one from the military or SSU persecuted them, moreover, no one threatened them with death for their views. For example, in liberated Izyum, some Ukrainians with pro-Russian views freely gave interviews to Ukrainian journalists, and no one threatened them with violence or harm.

Russian media write about this with reference to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. Allegedly, he estimated the losses of the Ukrainian armed forces at tens of thousands of dead. It is not true.

As StopFake writes, the American general did not make any statements about the losses of the Ukrainian army. At the same time, Milley said that tens of thousands of civilians were killed due to Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. He also drew attention to the fact that almost 15 million Ukrainians became refugees as a result of the war. Despite this, Russia continues to attack civilians and critical infrastructure.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin noted that Ukrainian defenders are using Western weapons very effectively, in response to which Russia is stepping up aggression against civilians. Terrorism against civilians is part of Russia's military strategy.

That is, representatives of the Pentagon at a briefing at the Ramstein air base expressed support for Ukraine and drew attention to the crimes of Russia. Russian propaganda took quotes out of context and distorted their content for wishful thinking. The Russians use this tactic systematically. Earlier, with the help of disfigured quotes, they reported that the German edition of Die Welt called on Ukraine to recognize the “loss of Donbas”.

Russian media write about it.Like, the provocation was ordered by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi. It seems that the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine needs to expose Russia as an inhuman aggressor, which, due to failures at the front, hits peaceful targets. For this, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are allegedly beaten at power facilities with “Points U”.

Russia has not provided any evidence to support its claims. On September 11, the Russians launched a missile attack on CHP-5 in Kharkiv, leaving Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk and partially Donetsk regions without electricity. In total, 11 missiles were fired at the facilities of the Ukrainian energy system.

After the beginning of the liberation of the Kharkiv region, Russian propagandists confirmed that it was their troops who had struck the critical infrastructure: “Glad to strike the energy infrastructure of the Kyiv regime because it is important for victory.” Moreover, they called on the Russian military to carry out new strikes, including against the Rivne and Khmelnitskyi nuclear power plants. In their opinion, “electricity is not a right, but a privilege”, which Ukrainians “do not deserve”.

Subsequently, the rhetoric of the pro-Kremlin media and propagandists changed, they accused Ukraine of “self-shelling” and “provocations”. Like, Ukraine will expose Russia as a “terrorist” and will again make false accusations. Among other things, allegedly Ukraine will launch messages that the Russians tortured civilians in the occupied Kharkiv region. Thus, propaganda is trying to justify the crimes committed in the temporarily occupied territories.

This message follows from the publications of pro-Russian bloggers. They say that the need for an offensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine followed from discussions about the supply of weapons to Ukraine in order to demonstrate to the allies that they should give even more weapons, even despite the depletion of their own stocks.

According to bloggers, we can talk about fighters, tanks and long-range ATACMS missiles capable of hitting targets in Russia. For this, according to the authors of the reports, shortly before the counteroffensive, an article was published by Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi and Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskyi, which deals with the possible spread of hostilities to other territories.

However, the supply of weapons to Ukraine began long before the counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, and the results of its use, in particular, could be seen in the Black Sea and the sinking of the Moskva cruiser. Also, the offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, of course, is not a demonstration of the capabilities of Ukraine, but, above all, an operation to liberate the territories occupied by the enemy, and it was planned from this point of view. According to its results, we recall that more than 2 thousand square kilometers of Ukrainian territory were freed.

The appearance of such messages is a way for pro-Russian bloggers to somehow explain the defeat of Russia on the battlefield and the loss of initiative in this direction, as well as an attempt to kill the wedge between Ukraine and the allies.

Russian media write about it. Like, the Ukrainian military landed a drone on the territory controlled by the militants and fled Ukraine in order to “spend honestly earned money” for this “agreement”. It’s fake.

As the Center for Counteracting Disinformation writes, the Bayraktar TB2 drone is controlled by a team of three operators, not just one person. It is impossible to control the UAV without the Drone Control Center, which is part of the complex. If the drone lands on enemy territory, the enemy will not be able to use it. The loss of “Bayraktar TB2” would have led to an investigation by military counterintelligence, by the end of which none of the participants in the incident would have been able to leave Ukraine.

Propagandists simply spread fakes to discredit “Bayraktars”: supposedly Ukraine will use them for chemical attacks, or the Ukrainian military refuses to use “Bayraktars”, or supposedly the company that produces bayraktars agreed to cooperate with Russia and so on.

To do this, they create messages on social networks in order to fake donations supposedly to help wounded soldiers.

The fact-checkers of the project “Beyond the News” checked the message in which the user signed as “Our Victory” calls on those who are not indifferent to help his “brother” Vadym Dobrovolskyi. He is allegedly wounded and in a coma after being hit by debris in the head. The fundraising message (€12,000) was published in early August and went viral with 59,000 shares, 3,500 likes and almost 6,000 comments. However, scammers are hiding under the user who posted the message. Fact-checkers also found another, very similar message about “help” to another “wounded” person.

The message uses two archival photographs from 2015, which have nothing to do with the text of the messages. There is also a discrepancy in other reported information. The phone number +380986704972 of the “brothers” of the wounded was previously used to register a personal Facebook account, which is now blocked due to “impersonating another person and using a fictitious name.”

The phone number +380986704972 was used in another help message. Here it is listed as a phone number “for contacting the parents of the wounded soldier Yurii Sternadchuk”. The message was allegedly made on behalf of the father, Volodymyr Sternadchuk, although it was published in April by a user signed as “Glory to Ukraine”. The photo of “Yuri Sternadchuk” is a screenshot from the video in Tik-Tok on the @muzhikam channel. This user creates a video about the everyday life of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The video from which the screenshot was taken was uploaded on April 17, and the Facebook post about the injury of the so-called Yurii Sternadchuk will appear two days later. On the phone in one of the social networks, they found the real name of the author of the channel, but they did not find any connections of this person with Yurii or Volodymyr Sternadchuk.

The reports about the “wounded” soldiers Vadym and Yurii are almost identical, only the date of the “wound”, the photo and the amount of “help” differ. In the first case, 9 thousand euros were collected “for the wounded”, in the second - 12. Fraudsters see what an emotional response the stories about wounded soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine evoke and come up with stories that are similar to the truth for profit.

The fact-checkers of the NotaYenota (The note of the raccoon) project drew attention to the photo and found out that the photo was not from Azov and Olenivka. This is a photo from one of the largest Nazi concentration camps, Buchenwald, taken in 1945. As evidence of the detention of Azov prisoners in Olenivka, it has almost 9,000 shares. Fact checkers say that at first this photo was shared by bots, and then picked up by real users. It was also circulated in many patriotic and anonymous pseudo-patriotic groups.

The Facebook page Ukraine LIVE spread a message about “3 hellish months” of the captivity of the Azov people (although in fact it has been more than three months already). The report compares their detention in Olenivka with the detention in Auschwitz and the Hulah and illustrates it with a number of photographs – Ukrainian soldiers in captivity and a photo allegedly from Auschwitz. Actually photos from Buchenwald and other camps. The photograph of 1945, which has the Olenivka geotag, has been shared more than 8.7 thousand times and the number is growing.