Moscow continues to recruit a number of lecturers under its control to organize the Knowledge Society in the temporarily occupied territory of the Luhansk region. The task of this propaganda structure, which has existed since the times of the USSR, is to brainwash the workers and students of the region.

The Center for National Resistance reports that propagandists organize lectures, the attendance of which is compulsory. At lectures, agitators tell a distorted story and promote the greatness of Russia and its leaders in the best traditions of totalitarianism. The occupation administration has already developed a plan for “lectures” for 2024 in local educational institutions. They want to pay special attention to the “information zombies” of young people and children.

In the temporarily occupied territories, Russian propaganda continues to promote its narratives. It is worth noting that propagandists also bear responsibility for the war that the Kremlin unleashed, and each such agitator will have to answer for their crimes before the people of Ukraine.

The Center encourages people to report any available information about the mentioned “lecturers” in the chat @sprotyv_official_bot.

Ukrainians began receiving notifications from foreign numbers on behalf of Ukraine's National Post that it could not deliver parcels due to an alleged lack of data on the delivery address. To enter one’s full address and receive “one’s” package, scammers encourage one to follow a link and fill out all the necessary data.

The Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council urges people to never click on links of a dubious nature, since the goal of scammers is to obtain all the necessary information about users for further criminal actions. In addition, it is worth noting that not a single postal service in Ukraine sends messages to users from foreign numbers.

If you have become a victim of scammers and have lost access to your page on a social network, contact the cyber police or other competent authorities.

Ukrainians in Europe began to receive messages inviting them to gather for protests in European cities and take up posters with the inscriptions: “Give people peace”, “We want peace in Europe”, “Important people”, “Ukraine is the most tired of all”, “We demand peace!” and things like that. The senders of such messages claim that the demonstration itself will last only 5-10 minutes, and during this time it will also be necessary to shoot a video. In addition, there is a prepared text for the rally, after reading which presumably on camera the performer will receive as much as 100 euros. All other protesters are promised 50 euros each or “payment for the road and delicious coffee”.

The text, which is supposed to be read by one of the protesters, contains unusual constructions for the Ukrainian language. For example, “in Ukraine” or “the Hungarian branch of a public association of Ukrainians”. In addition, this text mentions the “voice of reason” of Arestovych, who allegedly “suffers attacks” from Zelenskyi. However, it is worth noting that the former adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine was distinguished by his defense of “good Russians” and destructive statements about Ukraine, its authorities and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, therefore, as a result, the SBU began to deal with him.

Among other messages of planned rallies, the following should be heard: “war for them (ed. – the military-political leadership of Ukraine) is unlimited power, and for the common people it is a deep demographic catastrophe, daily horrors and impoverishment in a foreign land” or “if it’s difficult now to talk about peace, first we will discuss a ceasefire!”.

Unknown people expect to gather 30-35 Ukrainians for such rallies. We urge one not to fall for such messages and to respect the Ukrainian military, who at the cost of their own lives are protecting the citizens of Ukraine from the Russian invasion. Previously, we analyzed disinformation about alleged payments to all Ukrainians in the amount of 6,600 hryvnia.

On December 12, 2023, Kyivstar subscribers began to complain about communication failures, while at the same time the company’s website was unavailable for reasons unknown at the time. It turned out that the company was subject to a hacker attack. The Security Service of Ukraine has opened criminal proceedings into a cyber attack against a mobile operator. According to one version, Russian special services may be behind this.

Meanwhile, VoxCheck analysts recorded fraudulent messages that the operator was charging each subscriber a compensation of 200 hryvnia to their mobile account.

Kyivstar specialists wrote on their Facebook page that scammers have become more active on various platforms and are spreading false information about compensation. Because the company has not announced any such initiatives. Experts emphasized that users should not distribute personal data that could end up among scammers.

According to such reports, the next evacuation from Zaporizhzhia to “Odesa, Poland and Germany” was supposed to take place on December 11, 2023. However, after processing this information, the Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council found out that in fact no evacuation is planned. Such messages are part of the Russian IPSO. By resorting to such cynicism, propagandists pursue the goal of sowing panic among the population of Ukraine. If such a notification is received, the Center calls on citizens not to click on the links and block the number from which the SMS came. More enemy speculation on the topic of evacuation of Ukrainians can be found here.

This was revealed by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. Propaganda messages say that the commandant of the Lviv region, Taras Hren, allegedly asked the leadership of the Ivan Franko Lviv National University to provide information about all male students. And a photo of the corresponding “document” is added to the messages.

However, the Lviv Regional Military Administration explained that the commandant of the Lviv region or not a single unit of the Lviv Regional Military Administration sent such letters to higher educational institutions. So the document is fake.

This information was recorded by specialists from the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. They explained that pro-Kremlin telegram channels are disseminating information about the defeat of the Grim-2 OTRK launcher. Video evidence is added to the messages.

However, in fact, the primary source of such “news” was a satirical telegram channel, the description of which clearly states that all messages are only humorous in nature. But in fact, the video depicts the defeat of Russian equipment. On December 6, 2023, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko published a video of the defeat of the Russian operational-tactical missile system on his telegram channel. It is most likely that the authors of the satirical channel used this particular video to create the news. And then the Kremlin resources replicated this.

Still, it is impossible to say that the Russians did not destroy Ukrainian equipment on the battlefield, because this is more than possible during the war. But propagandists deliberately exaggerate the significance of “destroyed” equipment on the battlefield, hinting at the supposedly low combat capability of the Ukrainian army. And they use supposedly reliable information to support such a thesis.

The head of the Main Directorate of Missile Forces and Artillery and Unmanned Systems of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Serhii Baranov, in an interview with the military radio station Army FM, when asked whether the Grim-2 installation was at the development stage, replied that the installation was “being improved so let the Russians experience its effects on themselves”.

Read here on how Russian propaganda devalues the weapons that serve Ukraine.

The Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council stated that Russia is planning a series of disinformation publications against the military-political leadership of Ukraine, which will be published on English-language resources. The materials are prepared by foreign journalists who have experience working in Russia, in particular, during the beginning of Putin’s power. The key goal of such actions by Russian propaganda can be considered an attempt to sow discord among Ukrainian society, discredit the government of Ukraine and demotivate Ukrainians to fight against Russia. Previously, we analyzed the manipulation that supposedly it was time for the Western world to admit Ukraine’s defeat in the war against Russia.

Pro-Russian resources are disseminating information that the Ukrainian authorities seem to have begun to prepare for the surrender of the central and western regions of Ukraine to Poland. This is evidenced by the fact that children began to be taught Polish in schools in the Poltava region. However, this is a fake.

This case was studied by specialists at the Center for Countering Disinformation. They managed to find out that the Polish language in the Poltava region is taught in only two schools, and not in all, as propagandists claim. This was reported by the Poltava City Council. Moreover, at the beginning of the school year, in addition to compulsory English, children in the region were offered to study Polish or German as a second foreign language, which indicates free choice and not coercion.

By claiming that Ukraine is ready to surrender its territories to Poland, Russian propaganda  is trying to demoralize Ukrainian society and assure everyone around that the defeat of the Ukrainian side in the war against Russia is inevitable. Propagandists also aim to create an image of Poland as an enemy among Ukrainians by spreading disinformation, as in this case. As part of the narrative that Poland will supposedly “absorb” Ukraine, we wrote about a conspiracy theory called “Ukrpolin”.

The number of telegram channels and pages on social networks promising to help in the search for captured or missing Ukrainian military personnel has recently increased. It is indicated that to complete this task they contact relatives and friends with questions about personal data and other information. This information is subsequently used by propagandists.

Specialists from the “Beyond the News” project cited the answers of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War to the most common questions. In particular, one cannot share their phone number and other contacts, residential address, social media profiles, brigade number, unit location, as well as photographs, including images with comrades from the army, to strangers.

The dissemination of such information could lead to a deterioration in the situation of military personnel. If scammers can simply profit from someone else's misfortune, representatives of enemy intelligence services can manipulate or resort to blackmail.

The project specialists note that no one on social networks, such as Facebook or Telegram, will effectively search for your loved one. This work is performed professionally and free of charge only by specialists authorized by government agencies. A Road Map is available on the official website of the Prisoner of War Coordination Headquarters, which details what a family should do in cases where a family member is captured, missing, or killed.

Propagandists are spreading images on social media of a purported cover of the Turkish satirical magazine LeMan, depicting a dead Biden and a calm Xi Jinping. Along with the illustration is a Turkish phrase: “If you sit by the river for a long time, you can see the body of your enemy floating by”. The reports came after Biden met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping from November 15 to 17 in San Francisco, during which Joe Biden called him a dictator. However, this image is fake.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found out that LeMan magazine had not published an issue with such a cover. It contains the following data - date and issue number: November 17, 2023, issue 45 since the beginning of the year, as well as another issue number - 1652. However, they did not find confirmation of this cover on the official LeMan pages on social networks. VoxCheck also checked to see if issue number 45 or 1652 was published on November 17th and found that LeMan had not published any new issues at that time. Issue number 45 (or 1652) did not appear until November 22 and had a different cover dedicated to living conditions in the hostels.

By spreading such fake news, propagandists want to create the impression that the foreign press is skeptical not only of the United States, but of the West as a whole. Creating false covers of foreign publications is a regular practice of Russian propagandists, as Detector Media has repeatedly written about. 

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security writes that unknown people created an anonymous feedback bot on Telegram, allegedly on behalf of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, for complaints and suggestions from Ukrainians and other persons. Its name is @rustem_umerov_bot. However, Umierov does not have an account on Telegram, and the created bot is not official and has no relation to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the ministry said.

It is likely that the information collected can be used for Russian IPSO directed against Ukraine. Nothing prevents the enemy from resorting to innovative methods of conducting hybrid warfare, so collecting information for his own purposes is possible in this way. The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine asked “not to provide any information at the request of the individuals running this account, and also to file a complaint against it”.

Social networks began to spread messages in Ukrainian with the information that “our army liberated 270-300 km², losing 71 thousand soldiers killed”. The publications also say: in order to de-occupy all territories, it will be necessary to “kill” almost 29 million Ukrainians.

Specialists from the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security analyzed such messages. They found out that such publications are Russian IPSO. As for the deoccupied territories, this is the case – as of September 10, 2023, the Armed Forces of Ukraine actually liberated about 270 km². However, the data on the number of Ukrainian military deaths during hostilities is invented, since this information is a state secret and will be made public by Ukraine only after the end of the war. It turns out that the “calculation” of future losses was made on the basis of imaginary data, so it cannot be considered reliable.

Propagandists manipulate information and create facts because they see this as effective and potentially influential on Ukrainian society. Such disinformation is spread with the aim of demoralizing Ukrainians and making them think about giving up. When reading similar cases that can evoke strong emotions, we encourage you to think critically. We also worked on the Russian information campaign, when on behalf of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, recipes for dishes from pigeons and dogs were sent to Ukrainians in connection with the alleged crisis in the agricultural sector in Ukraine.

According to such reports, the shortage of medicines allegedly arose against the backdrop of Ukraine’s refusal to use medicines produced in Russia or Belarus, as well as due to complicated logistics. In addition, the letters contain advice on how traditional medicine can help in this case. This is the Russian IPSO.

The case was worked on by the Center for Countering Disinformation and noted that the Ministry of Health of Ukraine itself had already managed to refute this information. They reported that in fact there is no shortage of medicine, and added: Ukrainians have access to original and high-quality medicines both in pharmacies and in medical institutions.

The purpose of this pseudo-mailing is to discredit the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and sow panic among Ukrainians. Previously, we analyzed the message of Russian propaganda that expired medicines are allegedly being imported into Ukraine, which is why people are allegedly  dying.

The agricultural sector suffered significant losses, therefore, in order for ordinary citizens of Ukraine to at least somehow diversify their diet, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine allegedly sent out a mailing to Ukrainians with recipes for preparing dishes from pigeons, dogs, and Colorado beetles. This is the Russian IPSO.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Security investigated this case. They noted that the Ministry of Agrarian Policy itself had already denied the information. They stated that they did not do such a mailing and called it another attempt by the Russians to convince everyone around that there is famine in Ukraine.

Previously, we analyzed the message of Russian propaganda that Ukrainians are supposedly starving and must stand in line for free lunches.

Pro-Russian resources began distributing a video in which supposedly Ukrainian military personnel, introducing themselves as fighters of the 3rd battalion of the 110th separate mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, complain to the President of Ukraine and the Commander-in-Chief about poor command and heavy losses in Avdiivka.

Fact-checkers of the StopFake project processed this case. They found out that the 110th separate mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces responded to this video and refuted it. On the brigade’s official Facebook page they write that the video is not of their Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers, but of occupiers dressed in Ukrainian uniforms. In addition, suspicion was also aroused by the fact that the “military man” who complained on behalf of the battalion did not name his company, unit, position, surname or call sign in this “appeal”, although the video was recorded with open faces.

Propagandists are trying to demoralize Ukrainian society by spreading fake news like this video. They do this cynically, insidiously and resort to peculiar methods. Previously, we refuted the information that allegedly Hamas representatives recorded a video in which they thanked Zelenskyi for providing the weapons.

This information was recorded by specialists of the Brekhunets (The Liar) project. In the message, they said that private entrepreneurs in Volyn receive phone calls on behalf of tax officials, demanding money. During a telephone conversation, the attackers claim that the head of the state tax inspectorate of the local department of the State Tax Service in the Volyn region, Serhii Samchuk, is talking to private entrepreneurs.

However, this is a lie. Actually, Serhii Samchuk denied information about telephone calls from the tax service. He also warned entrepreneurs against fraud and urged them to contact the police if anyone receives such calls.

Anonymous Telegram channels broadcasting pro-Kremlin rhetoric are distributing a screenshot of an alleged article by the media Ukrainska Pravda with the headline “Officers of the 128th Brigade, suspected of selling weapons to Hamas, have died”. Also, Russian propaganda reports about 50 dead servicemen and hints that it was not an accident. It is not true.

The case was investigated by fact-checkers of the Center for Countering Disinformation. In fact, such an article does not exist in the publication Ukrainska Pravda. As a result of the Russian attack, 19 soldiers of the 128 separate mountain assault brigade died, not 50, as the propagandists wrote.

In this way, the Russians are trying to discredit the Ukrainian military and continue to spread fakes that Ukraine is selling Western weapons to Hamas. Earlier, we refuted the fake that Hamas representatives recorded a video in which they thanked Zelenskyi for the weapons provided.

In the Ukrainian segment of the Facebook social network, an alleged poem by Taras Shevchenko is being spread, where he seems to predict the events of modern Ukraine: “The poor man cries, the rich man rejoices, and the government robs. Poor people bury sons killed in the war. A rich man who is full and proud makes a wedding”. However, there is no such poem in the works of the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko.

The case was investigated by fact-checkers of the Center for Countering Disinformation. Taras Shevchenko does not have such a poem, and it is not written in his style. This was pointed out by the Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko: “Style, damn, style: no matter how the Chekist rabble disguises itself, no matter how it forges a voice for itself, as in the fairy tale about the wolf and the kid, the style will definitely betray them”. In her opinion, “Shevchenko's fakes” are “concocted in the style of an illiterate graphomaniac and thrown into the network as if they belonged to the pen of Taras Shevchenko, with a postscript, to encourage the spreaders, in the spirit of “oh how relevant, indeed a prophet! [...]”.

The original source of the fake poem is the Solomia Ukrainets Facebook page, which is not the first time that it promotes disinformation, anti-Semitism and pro-Russian narratives. In 2018, the publication Chitomo wrote about this with reference to the research Opora.

In this way, Russian propaganda tries to destabilize Ukrainian society, discredit the Ukrainian government and incite a rebellion against it. This “fake poem” appears in posts accusing the authorities of devaluing the lives of Ukrainians almost at the same time as Russian fakes that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces is calling for a military coup.

On November 7, 2023, the US State Department issued a press release titled “The Kremlin’s Efforts to Covertly Spread Disinformation in Latin America”, which revealed that the Russian government is funding a disinformation campaign using local media throughout Latin America. They are doing this in order to undermine support for Ukraine and at the same time spread sentiments against the USA and NATO among the Latin American audience. The main goal of Russian propagandists, according to the message, is to create an organic space for spreading propaganda in the Latin American space.

Media representatives of the online edition Espresso informed about the publication. In particular, the press release also noted that Moscow uses an extensive system of spreading false information: from websites to state media, in order to increasingly infiltrate Western discourse.

At the same time, the message of the State Department explained how such a disinformation campaign will work in general: first of all, they plan to organize a trained group of specialists of the editorial team, and the editorial board will be formed, for example,  by journalists and leaders of public opinion from the Latin American region. Subsequently, the team in Russia will create and send materials to the Latin American media for review, editing and appropriate final publication in local media. In addition, the Russian team anticipates that their materials will be “personalized” for the Latin American consumer — adding a local context and thus creating a specific plane for unobtrusively spreading pro-Kremlin narratives.

Among other things, translation technology from Russian to Spanish will be involved. Moreover, the translation will be carried out by a Russian specialist who is proficient in the Spanish language. Presumably, in order to prevent the loss of the main context in the messages, the Russian translator will maintain the mood required by the Kremlin.

A fake page of Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi appeared on the Telegram channel. Zaluzhnyi himself reported this on his verified Telegram channel: “I received information that someone, using my name, is sending personal messages to certain famous people with requests and proposals of a discreditable and provocative nature”.

The case was studied by the fact-checkers of the Center for Strategic Communications. Valerii Zaluzhnyi also noted: “The Zaluzhniy_ua account on Telegram does not belong to me, like any other accounts under the name Valerii Zaluzhnyi. They are all fake”.

The official pages of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are on Facebook and the social network X, formerly known as Twitter.

By spreading disinformation through the fake account of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Russian propagandists are trying to discredit the Commander-in-Chief and sow panic and despondency among the Ukrainian people.

On the social network X (formerly Twitter), since October 25, materials have been massively distributed on fake websites of well-known Ukrainian and foreign media. The fact-checkers of The Insider project were the first to write about this spam attack. Detector Media publishes the main techniques and narratives used in this spam attack.

Some of the tweets contain a link to several pseudo-novelty/analytical materials. The Insider analysts found that they were posted on sites counterfeiting well-known Ukrainian publications, such as OBOZREVATEL. In these columns one can see the messages of propagandists repeated many times - they say that Ukraine’s defeat is inevitable, Israel will completely take away Ukrainian military and financial assistance, Ukrainians will freeze without heating and will survive without salaries and pensions. It seems that all this is so that the “Kyiv regime” retains power.

Propagandists and foreign media sites falsify them. As noted in The Insider, pseudo-columns are published on “clones” of such publications as Der Spiegel, Welt, Fox News, La Parisien, Walla, etc. Western audiences are served the same narratives, only in English, French, German and Hebrew. The centrality of the attack and the connection of its organizers with Russia is indicated by the fact that within its framework they published links to Russian propaganda media, where a video about “drug addict Volodymyr Zelenskyi” was posted.

By resorting to this, propagandists want to cause panic among Ukrainians and despondency in the Ukrainian government, which should lead to destabilization of the political situation. This is also indicated by the fact that the attack occurred simultaneously with protests in several Ukrainian cities under the slogan “For demobilization!”, where the same visual materials were used. Detector Media has repeatedly refuted Russian manipulations and fakes aimed against the Ukrainian government, elected by the people.

A phishing attack on group administrators has begun on the social network Facebook. They receive a message saying that, allegedly due to serious violations of community rules, their account will be blocked within 24 hours. To prevent the account from being blocked, they  need to follow the link in the message and appeal the decision.

The specialists from the Center for Countering Disinformation have investigated this scheme and urge people not to click on dubious links. In this way, scammers try to gain access to your Facebook account and information about bank cards and personal data.

Moreover, the Facebook administration does not send such messages. If someone has written something like this, send a complaint and block the author. If you have become a victim of scammers, contact the cyber police.

In the Ukrainian segment of social networks, Russian robots spread information that prices in Ukraine are constantly being raised and they are profiting from Ukrainians. Allegedly, prices are rising and people will soon begin to starve. It is not true.

As the fact-checkers at the Center for Strategic Communications note, such comments about price increases in Ukraine are written by Russian bots commissioned by the Russian Digital Army group. They pretend to be Ukrainians and spread messages that Ukrainians will soon starve.

Thus, Russian propaganda is trying to destabilize the situation in Ukraine, cause panic among Ukrainians and distrust of the authorities. In fact, prices in Ukraine are rising due to the war that Russia started, but Ukrainians work and donate to the army. Earlier, Detector Media reported on the message that people in the country are starving and must stand in line for free lunches.

Pro-Kremlin telegram channels are distributing a screenshot of an alleged petition from the website of the official Internet representation of the President of Ukraine calling for “recognition of Israel’s war crimes against the people of Palestine”. The author of the petition is Ahmed Tamim, Chairman of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Ukraine, Supreme Mufti of Ukraine. It is not true.

As the fact-checkers of the Center for Countering Disinformation note, in fact, there is no such petition either on the website of the President of Ukraine or on the official pages of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Ukraine.

Thus, Russian propagandists are trying to discredit Ukraine, create a religious conflict on the territory of our state and worsen relations with Israel. Previously, we refuted the fake news that a Temple bar was opened for Satanists in Kyiv.