An allegedly advertising video from the mobile operator Vodafone dedicated to the new “Hero Phone Number” memorial campaign is being circulated online. According to the advertisement, Vodafone will start selling the phone numbers of fallen heroes for $100 to raise funds for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It's a lie.

Fact-checkers of the StopFake project analyzed the content and determined that the video was fake. Vodafone has never published such a video on its channels, which it confirmed to the Center for Countering Disinformation.

In addition, in the summer of 2023, the Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov reported that the phone numbers of dead and missing defenders would not be sold for two years.

According to the standard procedure, this period is one year. But, as Fedorov explained, “usually after a year without use, the number goes on free sale - this way you can receive the message “Your loved one has joined Viber” when he is no longer alive”. The initiative was supported by Ukrainian mobile operators.

Russian media said that Jens Stoltenberg allegedly admitted NATO's involvement in attacks on the Russian Black Sea Fleet. However, this is not true.

StopFake analysts investigated this case and found that the fake was based on the speech of the NATO Secretary General on March 14, 2024. Then Jens Stoltenberg presented his 2023 report, which covers all aspects of the Alliance's work over the past year.

Reflecting on NATO's support for Ukraine, Stoltenberg noted that in 2023, a number of member countries sent long-range systems to Ukraine for the first time - the British Storm Shadow missiles and the French SCALP. The allies also agreed to supply F-16 aircraft to Ukraine. Stoltenberg emphasized: “Ukraine needs even more support, and it needs it now. Ukrainians are not running out of courage. They're running out of ammunition”.

Stoltenberg emphasized that all this testifies to the high level of professionalism of the Ukrainian defense forces. And he noted that Ukraine’s successes in the Black Sea became possible, in particular, thanks to the support of NATO member countries, which provided the Ukrainian Armed Forces with modern weapons as important tools for countering Russian aggression in the Black Sea.

The Russians used these words to mean that NATO allegedly “confirmed involvement” in the Ukrainian attacks although it was exclusively about the supply of weapons.

At the beginning of March 2024, the 105th session of the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), operating under the UN, took place. Against this backdrop, the Kremlin began to claim that the Ukrainian military is using various homemade ammunition and grenades “containing toxic chemical substances”. And, as a result, pro-Kremlin media wrote that the OPCW countries allegedly failed to refute “the facts provided by the Russian side”. It's a lie.

StopFake fact-checkers investigated this case and determined that one of the main topics of the OPCW meeting was indeed the use of chemical weapons in the war against Ukraine. However, Council members rejected all Russian accusations against Ukraine, calling them a “disinformation campaign” aimed at creating confusion in the Rada and discrediting the OPCW. Russia was also accused of spreading unfounded accusations about possible Ukrainian “plans” to use chemical weapons on its own territory.

Moreover, according to reports presented to the OPCW for discussion, the Russian occupiers are actively using so-called “riot control agents” against the Ukrainian defense forces - chemical compounds that temporarily deprive people of the ability to function, causing irritation of the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract and skin.

Russian media write that Pope Francis congratulated Volodymyr Putin on his so-called victory in the elections in Russia. However, this is a lie.

StopFake fact-checkers investigated this case and found that the Vatican press service refuted this information in the propaganda publication RIA News, which themselves published this fake. Subsequently, this information was replicated by other media.

While the entire democratic world unanimously condemns such “elections”, calling them authoritarian and repressive, there were also those who recognized the legitimacy of the “civil will”. These are such friendly countries as the DPRK, Cuba, Venezuela, Belarus, Bolivia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan. And the Chinese leader even sent a congratulatory telegram to Putin.

Russian telegram channels are disseminating information that Kyiv has allegedly begun to prepare young men for confrontation with Russian troops during the upcoming defense in the Sumy direction. According to propagandists, “young men will have to form partisan movements and begin sabotage”. In addition, Russian propaganda says that Kyiv has allegedly already begun to use such a detachment in one of the directions. And as a result, a sixteen-year-old Ukrainian medic of the 1st Infantry Battalion of the 67th DUK Mechanized Infantry Brigade with the call sign “Troy” allegedly died.

The Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council denied this information. In fact, the statement about the training of “young Ukrainian partisans” to fight the Russians is an invention of Russian propagandists that does not correspond to reality. There is also fake information about the death of a Ukrainian combat medic precisely as a result of the partisan movement again. Unfortunately, Anastasia Marianchuk with the call sign “Troy” actually died on March 18, 2024, but from enemy shelling, and not because she joined one of the so-called “detachments”. In addition, she was not 16, but 22 years old.

This fake nourishes the propaganda narrative that Nazism rules in Ukraine, so the country needs to be “denazified”. However, this is only one of the justifications for unprovoked Russian aggression. In the end, propagandists seek to demonize both the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian Armed Forces, since they have allegedly already begun to involve children in physical confrontation with Russia. Previously, we refuted the information that in Kyiv they allegedly distribute “propaganda” to women, elderly people and children so that they could be mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russian propagandists claim that Ukraine intends to mobilize three million childless women. “It seems that Ukraine has taken the path of self-destruction”, comments Russian propaganda, manipulating new material from TEXTY.org.ua, where journalists are trying to calculate the country’s mobilization reserve. “War until the last Ukrainian. The only hope is that Russia will win faster than a drug addict can destroy the entire country”, say social media users. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that at the moment there are no plans for large-scale mobilization of women in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said at a conference in December 2023 that there would be no mobilization of women in the country during martial law. Military registration of women applies only to persons who have received education in medical and pharmaceutical specialties, but they can serve only at their own request. The analysis of TEXTY journalists also does not indicate the plans of the Ukrainian authorities to mobilize women.

Russian propaganda systematically uses the topic of mobilization in Ukraine to spread disinformation, convincing that the Ukrainian authorities intend to “fight until the last Ukrainian”, and due to large losses they are already recruiting women, pensioners and minors into the army. Detector Media has repeatedly refuted such fakes.

Russian propagandists are spreading information in the media that Ukraine is conducting nuclear tests. They claim that the earthquake in the Poltava region, recorded in early March 2024, is allegedly evidence of an “underground nuclear explosion” from Ukraine. They say this may be an attempt by Ukraine to hint to the world that it has nuclear weapons and is ready to use them. However, this is not true.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to this. They emphasize that Ukraine is a nuclear-free country and does not intend to conduct nuclear tests. Earthquakes in this region are a natural phenomenon and are not associated with nuclear explosions.

Russian officials began spreading disinformation as early as 2022 claiming that Ukraine was planning to use a dirty bomb. However, these statements are not confirmed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has never expressed any intention to acquire, or worse, create, nuclear weapons. In addition to the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine has obligations under a number of other documents - both national and international. On October 24, 1991, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a statement on the country’s nuclear-free status. Three years later, Ukraine actually joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It is this document, and not the Budapest Memorandum, that obliges Ukraine not to own nuclear weapons.

Propagandists disseminated information in the Russian media that the President of Ukraine, according to them, during his last visit to Odesa allegedly revealed the location of a secret base in the port area of the city, where, according to them, drones were being prepared for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, these statements are not confirmed.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to this. They note that the meeting between the President of Ukraine and the Prime Minister of Greece was of an official nature and took place in the presence of many government officials and journalists. It is baseless to assume that a secret military base was included in the excursion program as part of such a visit.

The Greek Prime Minister confirmed that the delegation was near the port when the shelling occurred, but this has nothing to do with Zelenskyi's visit to any secret base.

Propagandists spread such fakes in order to discredit the President of Ukraine and quarrel between Western countries and Ukraine. Detector Media has repeatedly refuted fakes directed personally against Zelenskyi.

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.

Propagandists in anonymous telegram channels are spreading another “shock news”: allegedly in the Odesa region, a Territorial center of procurement and social support car tried to catch up and stop a minibus, which led to a fatal accident for four people. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that the propagandists took information about an accident that actually occurred in the Dnipropetrovsk region and came up with information about the Territorial center of procurement and social support car.

This story is being spread in the context of Russia’s disinformation narrative that the mobilization throughout Ukraine is accompanied by constant violations of human rights, Ukrainians are refusing to serve en masse, and the government is ready to “force everyone to serve” in order to continue the war. Detector Media has repeatedly refuted other fakes within this narrative.

Propagandists are distributing on social networks a photo of a young woman wearing a vest worn by social workers and volunteers, laughing against the backdrop of a large fire that occurred in Berlin on March 12 in the Tegel refugee camp, where Ukrainian refugees are also staying. “The strange reaction of a volunteer of a Berlin camp for Ukrainian refugees after a large fire started on the territory”, write Russian anonymous telegram channels. However, this photo is fake.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that the fakeness of the photo is primarily indicated by the fact that it began to be disseminated by Russian anonymous telegram channels, which were repeatedly seen publishing disinformation. The picture is being circulated everywhere along with the video as “proof” that it was taken from it, but upon detailed analysis of the video of the fire, StopFake discovered that this particular frame was not in it.

Fact-checkers also examined many videos on social networks that appeared after the fire in the refugee camp set up on the territory of the former Tegel Airport in Berlin, but did not find this footage of a volunteer. In addition, if one carefully analyzes the image, they can see traces of the photo editor’s intervention. Thus, there is a stripe between the girl’s head and the smoke, and the structure of the image against the background of the hands is also blurred, which indicates poor-quality insertion of other elements into the photograph.

Analyzing a photo using tools that detect the use of a photo editor is quite difficult, since it has been stored and watermarked multiple times, but even then, the photo shows different layers indicating tampering.

Such a fake is spreading in the context of a popular Russian disinformation narrative that the West is supposedly tired of Ukrainian refugees and is no longer ready to help them. However, in reality, countries continue to provide asylum to Ukrainian refugees, social protection and education to Ukrainian children. Detector Media refuted a number of Russian fakes about refugees from Ukraine in the West.

Propagandists in the Russian media are frightened with a “nuclear apocalypse” due to the disconnection of the second power unit of the Khmelnytsk NPP from the network. They say that this “emergency shutdown” was caused by “nuclear fuel from Westinghouse from the United States”. They appeal to the fact that reactors of Russian origin operate only on Russian nuclear fuel, so changing suppliers is very risky. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that the national operator Energoatom reported that the shutdown of the second power unit of the Khmelnytsk NPP occurred due to “fluctuations in the axial shift parameter of the rotor of the high-pressure cylinder of the turbine unit with an increasing tendency”. This is a mechanical problem and not a nuclear safety issue. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that the outage had no impact on nuclear safety. Ukrainian nuclear power plants have long expanded their capabilities and abandoned Russian fuel in favor of American fuel. Propagandists are trying to discredit this process and again “throw stones” at the West by spreading these fakes.

This information is disseminated by Russian telegram channels. According to propagandists, this was done by a resident of Mala Rohan, Kharkiv region, because of his “love for Russia”.

In fact, the information about the poisoning of the military of the 113th separate territorial defense brigade does not correspond to reality. The Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council writes about this. The man, a resident of Balakliia, and not Mala Rohan, as Russian propagandists claim, was indeed detained, but not because of the poisoning of the military, but for his support of the Russians and calls for cooperation with them during the occupation of Balakliia. This was previously reported by the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office.

We urge you to trust only verified sources of information. Previously, Detector Media denied information that in the Kharkiv region, soldiers of the 125th separate territorial defense brigade allegedly shot two men.

Information is being spread online that the United States supplies the Ukrainian Armed Forces with large quantities of the painkiller Nalbuphine. The authors of the “news” write that the substance is used to extend the “shelf life” of organs, for their further transportation and sale on the black market. The Ukrainian military man is allegedly first injected with the drug, and then the active substance “preserves the organs for their further removal”. However, this is fake.

There are no studies that prove that Nalbuphine can be used for the preservation of donor organs. Specialists from the VoxCheck project write about this. In addition, it is not clear what propagandists mean by “preservation” of organs in the human body and why they should be preserved in humans at all. After all, in Ukraine, transplantation operations are performed after brain death is declared (in the case of posthumous donation). At the same time, the heart continues to function and support the vital functions of the organs, so in this case “preservation” is not necessary.

This drug is not new; it was approved in the USA back in 1979. And in Ukraine, it has been in the first aid kits of the Ukrainian military since 2014. In the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it can most likely be used to reduce pain in the pre- and postoperative period or as an addition to anesthesia, but certainly not for organ preservation.

In general, the Russians have been spreading the message about black transplantology in Ukraine, in particular in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, since 2014. This fake propaganda echoes others like it about the “functioning of American biological laboratories in Ukraine” or about “combat mosquitoes”, for example. The purpose of such information dumps is to demonize the West, including the United States in our case, and Ukraine. More details about the propaganda campaign of information influence “Black Transplantology” can be found in the study of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council.

We also previously refuted information about the activities of black transplantologists in Sieverodonetsk. Then all the evidence presented in the propaganda video was fabricated.

Information is being spread online that Ukrainian doctors are allegedly en masse demanding a bribe from the mobilized for recording diseases at the Military Medical Commission. This was apparently stated by the head of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, Viktor Liashko.

In reality, Viktor Liashko did not say this, according to experts on the VoxCheck project. The information disseminated online contains a frame from the minister’s interview on the “We are Ukraine” YouTube channel back on June 29, 2023. This interview concerned protection from radiation, the situation in the territories flooded after the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station and the medical system. However, there was no talk about the work of the Ukrainian military medical commissions.

On March 4, 2024, Liashko announced that an inspection of the Ukrainian military medical commissions in the city of Kyiv began. “This decision is due to the increase in the number of complaints we have been receiving recently. The main ones concern basic things that can be quickly corrected if desired. This includes non-compliance with the electronic queue and the lack of basic conditions for comfortable passage of the Ukrainian military medical commissions, and unoptimized routes”, said the minister. He also noted that the corruption component does not go unnoticed, however, he did not give quantitative estimates and did not call corruption “massive”.

Moreover, back on January 10, 2024, Viktor Liashko answered questions from journalists, in particular, regarding corruption during the Ukrainian military medical commissions. There was no mention of any widespread corruption cases.

Viktor Liashko announced a change in the approach to conducting commissions to optimize the procedure and prevent the emergence of corruption. Thus, a separate package has been developed within the framework of the Medical Guarantee Program, which makes it possible to assign a separate health care institution to each Territorial center for recruitment and social support. All visits are recorded in the electronic healthcare system, which should reduce corruption risks when passing a medical commission.

If a suspicion of a violation arises, for example, a medical examination of a person liable for military service is carried out for more than 4 days, then the data is additionally transmitted to the health departments. They work with the chairmen of the Ukrainian military medical commissions for a specific institution. To combat corruption during medical examinations, the Ministry of Health also cooperates with law enforcement agencies.

To summarize, there really is a problem of corruption, but there is no way to assess how widespread it is. The Ministry of Health of Ukraine is focused on organizational issues that can be resolved quickly enough and ensure a clear process for passing a medical examination. Then, according to the minister, each request received by the hotline of the Ministry of Health and the National Health Service on the quality of medical examinations will be examined in more detail. “We have the ability and competence to check what is happening in each commission. Based on the results, we will make management decisions”, the minister emphasized on March 6, 2024, on the air of the United News telethon.

Previously, we refuted information that drugs were allegedly tested on Mariupol residents in the interests of Western companies.

Pro-Kremlin resources are spreading reports that dissatisfaction with the policies of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi is allegedly growing in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, so that the Ukrainian military “wants to seize the Verkhovna Rada by force”. In asserting this, Russian propaganda refers to supposedly closed chats of the Ukrainian Armed Forces military.

In fact, this information is not true, according to the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Russia has been promoting this narrative since the beginning of the full-scale invasion - on February 25, 2022, Putin called on the Ukrainian military to “take power into their own hands”. This narrative became more active during the period after the resignation of ex-head committee of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi. This is at least the second time that propagandists are using fake screenshots from “secret chats of the Ukrainian military”.

Thus, Russian propaganda “plays” with the moods and feelings of Ukrainians. This fake is aimed at exploding mutual trust in Ukrainian society: civilians towards the military, political leadership towards the military command, and the military, in fact, towards the authorities and command. Previously, we refuted the information that deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, allegedly under martial law, were required by law to resign.

In the Ukrainian segment of social networks, information is being spread that the former leader and founder of the Right Sector organization Dmytro  Yarosh, in an interview with Espresso, allegedly called for an uprising against the power of Zelenskyi and his team. But this is not true.

VoxCheck analysts investigated this case and found out that the video to which the propagandists refer was published back in 2020. There were no calls to “overthrow” the government.

Propagandists cut out an excerpt from a long interview, where Yarosh emphasized that the opposition must come to power in a legal way and “restore order in the state”. “But for this, statist forces need to take power and restore order in the state. Take power - I mean, legally, only through democratic elections”, he said. That is, Yarosh did not call for a coup d'etat.

An alleged screenshot of a message from Volodymyr Zelenskyi on X (former Twitter) is being circulated online, in which he allegedly made a statement in English: “I will sign a decree that will require all Western countries to deport Ukrainian men living there back to Ukraine”. It is not true.

VoxCheck analysts investigated this case and found out that it was satirical news. The X page from which the message was distributed is a parody and does not belong to Zelenskyi. On the real Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s X page,  there is no such message.

In addition, the colors of the verification checkmarks for X are different in both accounts. Thus, since 2022, the accounts of politicians and government agencies have a gray check mark; Zelenskyi’s account has it in exactly this color. In the fake screenshot, it is blue, which is the color of the checkmark that users who have an X Premium subscription may have.

An alleged CNN advertisement in Times Square is being circulated on social networks with the text: “Kyiv is over. Will the Russians stop there or go further? Find out this and more at Political Briefing”. However, this is a lie.

VoxCheck analysts analyzed the case and determined that such advertising had never been shown in Times Square. At the request of fact-checkers of the Reuters news agency, Emily Kuhn, vice president of communications for CNN, responded that “the video was edited and is not an advertisement for CNN”.

We have repeatedly documented hoaxes involving fake graffiti or covers on foreign magazines, newspaper columns or advertisements. Thus, propagandists seek to show that their rhetoric (for example, that Zelenskyi is hated by the whole world) is also repeated in the West. So it may seem to readers that the public is really dissatisfied with Ukraine.

Pro-Russian resources are distributing an image with the logo of the Ukrainian online publication UNIAN, which contains a photograph of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Anatolii Barhylevych and a quote allegedly belonging to him: “With what disability group can you serve in the army? With anyone. If a person can tie a grenade to themselves and jump into the dugout, then they are fit”.

The Center for Countering Disinformation analyzed this “news”. Specialists from the Center verified the information in UNIAN and reported that there were no materials with similar content on the official pages of the news agency. And the quote itself, allegedly from the Chief of the General Staff, is made up, since Barhylevych did not say anything similar about people with disabilities. In addition, the creators of the fake also made a mistake in the quote. The word “man” is feminine, but at the end of the quote the Russians used the pronoun “he”, which corresponds to a word that is not feminine, but masculine.

The purpose of such fakes is to discredit the top military leadership of the Ukrainian state. Also, by spreading disinformation on behalf of Ukrainian online publications, the Russians are trying to give it more truthfulness. Previously, we have already recorded cases when propagandists spread fake news on behalf of the UNIAN news agency.

Pro-Russian telegram channels are spreading information that the “Kyiv regime” is allegedly preparing a terrorist attack in Kupiansk in order to blame Russia for it. According to propagandists, this is evidenced by the opening of the local market. In addition, the “news” notes that the Ukrainian military will use residential buildings as shelter, and local residents as “human shields”.

In fact, this information is not true, according to the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council. The purpose of this fake is to create an information alibi for the Russian military before the likely chaotic shelling of Kupiansk, which they carry out almost every day. Also, according to the head of the Kupiansk city military administration, Andrii Besedin, measures are being taken on the territory of the community for the mandatory evacuation of the population to safer places, which, in particular, contradicts the words of propagandists about a “human shield”.

By spreading this disinformation, Russian propaganda fuels its narrative about the alleged “crimes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, resorting to one of the propaganda tactics called “reflection”. That is, propagandists seek to divert attention from the real state of affairs. We previously wrote that Russia is trying to disrupt the process of evacuating children from the Kharkiv region by spreading disinformation messages.

Propaganda resources are disseminating information that the Ukrainian Armed Forces, allegedly with the support of up to 300 “foreign mercenaries”, tried to invade the Belgorod region of Russia from the area of Odnorobivka, Nekhoteievka and Sidoroshyno. In asserting this, propagandists refer to the Russian Ministry of Defense, as well as to the corresponding statement by Putin.

In fact, this information is not true. They write about this in the Center for Strategic Communications under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. Units of the Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVK) and the Siberia Battalion entered Russian territory in the Hraivoronskyi district of the Belgorod region and Tiotkino in the Kursk region on the morning of March 12. They consist of ethnic Russian emigrants, prisoners and former Russian military personnel who voluntarily stood up to defend Ukraine.

GUR representative Andrii Yusov in a comment to the Suspilne (Public) stated that on the territory of Russia these units operate as “independent structures and organizations”. They consist of Russian citizens and therefore, accordingly, “are at home”.

Propagandists are spreading information according to which Ukraine is allegedly facing a catastrophe due to the spread of tularemia and leptospirosis. According to them, in northern Ukraine, these diseases began to spread due to the large number of rats living in landfills in the vicinity of cities. Another report on this topic states that a garbage truck driver discovered a corpse at a landfill in the Rivne region. Propagandists say that this event allegedly caused shock among Rivne police officers, who were conducting “educational conversations” with local residents. They say that several more corpses were found at the landfill, around which there were a bunch of rats. The reports cite law enforcement officers who allegedly claim that “the landfill will come close to the city, and with it a bunch of rats that carry all kinds of diseases”. However, this information is fake.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to this. At the time of writing the original refutation material, there was not a single case of tularemia in Ukraine, and there was not a single case of leptospirosis. An article about the spread of these diseases in the Volyn region was published in 2018.

A reverse photo search revealed a message published by the Rivne region police on March 1st. This message states that on February 29 in the city of Dubno, a utility worker died as a result of a traffic accident at a local landfill. It was not possible to confirm other information contained in the message, namely about the discovery of other corpses and the number of rats in the landfill.

Tularemia and leptospirosis are serious infectious diseases and their spread can have serious health consequences. For prevention, it is important to follow the rules of personal hygiene and avoid contact with the causative agents of these diseases.

Propagandists spread such fake news to discredit Ukrainian local authorities and cause panic among the population.

Propagandists on anonymous telegram channels, where they spread pro-Russian rhetoric, are distributing a screenshot of a message from an individual who is allegedly a volunteer of the 110th territorial defense brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and is surprised that wounded military personnel are being taken for treatment to Zaporizhzhia, and not to Kharkiv. They say that it was this brigade that the Russians “destroyed” in Avdiivka, so it would be more logical to take the wounded to Kharkiv, and not halfway across the country to Zaporizhzhia. Russian media indicate that the command chose this strategy due to the fact that Kharkiv doctors allegedly help the military desert and hide in the big city. However, all this is fake.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found out that these statements are part of the Kremlin's disinformation campaign. For example, a person who is called a volunteer of the 110th territorial defense forces brigade is actually a journalist from Zaporizhzhia. Russian media also mixed up the brigade that served in Avdiivka.

In light of this, VoxCheck notes that the medical evacuation of Ukrainian military personnel is under threat due to constant Russian shelling, often aimed at medical facilities. This creates very difficult conditions for providing care to the wounded. Russians use such methods, in particular, to discredit the Ukrainian healthcare system.

Propagandists spreading pro-Russian rhetoric on anonymous telegram channels are distributing a video shown by Lviv residents who allegedly went to a rally against the head of the Office of the President Andrii Yermak in March 2024. However, this is a fake video.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. Using keywords on the Internet, they were able to find the original video. It was published on YouTube on November 28, 2014 under the title “Maidan in Lviv - December 1, 2013”. On this day, more than 50 thousand Lviv residents actually protested in the city center, demanding the resignation of Yanukovych, the government and parliament.

They found an audio track with shouts against Yermak on another recording that was distributed on March 13, 2020. Then representatives and supporters of the “Voice” party gathered near the President’s Office, outraged by the signing of new agreements in Minsk.

Previously, Ukrainian intelligence reported on the special operation Maidan-3, which was aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian authorities, spreading panic among the population and increasing hostility with foreign allies. These actions were accompanied by fake messages, the main peak of which occurs in March-April 2024. Thus, these messages probably also refer to the Maidan-3 special operation.