A fake is spreading in the Ukrainian segment of social networks that dozens of small explosive devices have been found in Lviv that can tear off a person’s limb. One of these pictures was shared almost 65,000 times.

In fact, as fact-checkers from StopFake write, no explosive devices were found in Lviv, this information was provided to journalists upon request by the Lviv police. It is interesting that the photo with the same subject is also distributed by Russian local media, in particular in Rostov. Most likely in the photo it is a broken electronic disposable cigarette without a case.

The Russian media are massively spreading information that Congressman Jamie Raskin allegedly called for the destruction of Russia because it is an Orthodox country with traditional values. And this is fake. Although it was not the Russian media that came up with it, but the American ones.

The fact that Raskin calls for a religious war against Russia, Orthodoxy and its traditional values, was said on the air of the FoxNews channel by host Tucker Carlson. And it was he who lied, since he is known for his commitment to Russia and has repeatedly disseminated manipulative theses. Here is the full text of Raskin's statement, but in short it sounds like this: Russia is the world center of corruption, totalitarianism, anti-feminism and violations of LGBT rights. At the same time, Ukraine is a democratic country that upholds the ideas of tolerance, human rights and freedoms. Therefore, it is clear to anyone, Democrat or Republican, why America should support Ukraine and do everything so that Russia loses this war.

The Russian edition of RIA Novosti published an article entitled “Food is running out in Europe. It is Russia, of course, to blame”, which says that a food crisis will soon come in Europe. This is a common thesis of Russian disinformation, which has several modifications and waves of distribution. The last one is that the “famine” in Europe, predicted back in March, did not happen, and now it is being postponed until the next year, 2023.

In any case, there will be food in Europe but it will rise in price due to general inflation and fuel prices, and the range of goods may also be reduced due to the destruction of logistics. And Russia is really to blame for both, waging war against Ukraine that is a supplier of many types of agricultural crops, and the sanctions that Europe was forced to impose on Russia because of its invasion.

But Russian propaganda insists that politicians who did not want to get cheap gas from Russia will be to blame for the imaginary famine in Europe, although there will be no famine in Europe. But in the poorer countries of Asia and Africa it may happen. And that is why Russian propaganda constantly downplays this threat and generally invents a famine in Europe in order to shift the responsibility from Russia for the food crisis to other states.

They write about it on social networks. Like, Sunak believes that because of the "severe economic crisis" the UK can no longer provide assistance to Ukraine. It seems that he said that he was freezing the foreign aid budget for 2 years. This is not true.

Indeed, on the day of his appointment as prime minister, Sunak promised to "lead the country out of a deep economic crisis and restore confidence in politics". In his speech, he spoke about the recession of the UK economy and did not mention anything about cuts in funds or assistance to Ukraine. According to Logically's fact-checkers, on October 25, the prime minister's office issued a press release stating that Rishi Sunak had a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi. Sunak stressed the UK's unwavering support for Ukraine.

“It is an honor for me to communicate with the President of Ukraine this evening. Both he and the Ukrainian people can count on the continued solidarity and support of Great Britain. We will always be with Ukraine”, Sunak wrote on Twitter.

Russian propaganda is trying to react to the surrounding events and adjusts the disinformation work to the new conditions. In particular, after the appointment of Liz Truss as the prime minister, they wrote that she was incompetent and her policy was Russophobia. They also wrote that the UK is preparing for a military coup.

Belarusian media write about this and distribute a video on social networks, which allegedly shows columns of German self-propelled mortars moving towards the border. Allegedly, Polish soldiers are helping the Lithuanians. Also, allegedly, the Lithuanian military had identification marks in the form of red ribbons. This is manipulation. According to the Lithuanian fact-checkers of the Delfi project, in fact, this video was filmed at the international Iron Wolf 2022-II exercises, which began on October 17. In total, 3,500 military personnel and 700 pieces of equipment were involved in the training. Such exercises are held annually in spring and autumn for the Iron Wolf mechanized infantry brigade and its battalions. The purpose of the exercises is to work out the combat coherence not only of the Lithuanian troops, but also of partners from other NATO countries. Russia and Belarus systematically spread fake news that NATO countries are aggressive and dangerous. The propagandists claimed that the goal of the West was to blow up the economic potentials of Russia and Belarus and worsen the quality of life of citizens, and also convinced that the Russian army, with the support of Belarus, could “take” Kyiv in two or three months.

 Such information appeared in the pro-Kremlin media. Messages began to spread after Volodymyr Putin in his "Valdai speech" said that Ukraine was creating a "dirty bomb" and Russia even knew "roughly where this is being done". Propagandists claim that Kyiv, on the basis of the projectile of the Tochka-U missile system, made a dummy of the Iskander missile for a provocation with a dirty bomb over the exclusion zone of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Like, the layout was made by Pivdenmash specialists, and the main cassette part of the dummy is pushed with radioactive material, and then shot down in the Chernobyl area in order to shock the world and accuse Russia of using nuclear weapons. However, this is not true. According to The Insider's fact-checkers, the so-called mock-up shown by the Russian media is fake. “Despite the similar outlines, Tochka-U and Iskander missiles have different sizes. The diameter of the Iskander is 920 mm, and the Tochka-U is 650 mm, almost one and a half times smaller. It is impossible to create a model of the Iskander based on Tochka-U, except perhaps a smaller copy, which is unlikely to convince international experts. And the scenario in which a rocket allegedly launched by Russian troops with a radioactive filling explodes over the Chornobyl exclusion zone, that is, a practically deserted territory where the harm done to Ukraine will be minimal, does not look very plausible,” the fact checkers write. This is not the first time Russia has claimed that Ukraine is going to use a dirty nuclear bomb to blame Russia for it. Read more about this in the text of Hala Skliarevska.

A cartoon with the same name is distributed on social networks. It seems to show what is really happening in Ukraine. In the story, Volodymyr Zelenskyi becomes a puppet of Western rulers and launches an attack on the Donbas. The animated video was allegedly produced by the Barracudas agency, positioned as a “French independent studio”. It is fake. There is no information on the web about the so-called Barracudas studio, its creation or work, except for one cartoon about “Nazi Ukraine”. The studio does not have pages or channels on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. At the same time, the video upload date on many platforms is the same - August 14-15. As VoxCheck fact-checkers note, this may indicate forced distribution from fake accounts. Fact-checkers of the Delfi project from Latvia noticed that the style of the Stop nazi games cartoon resembles the work of the Armenian animator David Sahakyants, who created the Kill Dim cartoon series two years ago. This is a political satire about Azerbaijan, which is portrayed as a puppet of Turkey and a threat to the security of Armenia. The cartoons use very similar artistic and visual imagery. For example, the dolls of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Volodymyr Zelenskyi are put on the arm. Later, in both cartoons, these puppets press a button with the inscription “war”, and tanks leave for Armenia and the Donbas. The cartoon "Stop Nazi Games" promotes the key narratives of Russian disinformation about Ukraine: that Ukraine is a Nazi country that started a "civil war" against its own population in the Donbas. Previously, propagandists distributed anti-Ukrainian cartoons created by a Russian woman from Sochi, with comments that allegedly it was made by Israel.

It seems to have become known that a minute after the explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, Liz Truss, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, wrote a message to Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, using her personal iPhone. "It's done", she seems to have written. This, they write in the Russian media, proves that Nord Stream was blown up by the British at the request of the United States. RFA News, for example, points to Reddit as the source of this news - a huge American forum, on which, among other things, there are discussion branches where only chatbots communicate.

Other media cite an even more dubious source, a man named Kim Dotkom. He considers himself an entrepreneur, but the police of three countries at once consider him a criminal. He is wanted by the US on charges of copyright infringement, money laundering, racketeering and fraud using electronic means of communication. He was also arrested in Germany and Thailand for hacking, spying and selling stolen phone numbers. He now lives in New Zealand, where the courts have already decided to give him up at the request of the United States, but he is trying to cancel the extradition in court.

This man is known not only for accusations, but also for strange statements, including pro-Russian ones. Yes, he believes that former US President Barack Obama conspired with Hollywood to accuse him of copyright infringement. He also wrote that the war in Ukraine was provoked by the United States, and even complained about "censorship" after the RT ban in the United States. Now it was he who wrote that Liz Truss wrote "done" after the Nord Stream bombing. Both Dotcom and the Russian media are trying to back up these fanciful claims with material from the Daily Mail, a British newspaper that reported on October 29, citing its own sources, that Truss's phone was broken by hackers and accessed to her personal correspondence from last year. The publication reported that hackers working for the Kremlin were involved in the break. The phone was broken so seriously that it was forced to be placed in a special protective safe - and the Truss herself had to change the device and phone number.

Russian propaganda provides all these details to prove that Truss did not have access to confidential information. The only thing missing from the propaganda is that British intelligence agencies discovered that Truss's phone had been hacked when she was Foreign Secretary in Johnson's government. That is, in the summer of 2022. After that, the phone was taken from her, the information was classified, and Truss began to prepare for the elections - and won. And the gas pipelines exploded on September 28. At that moment, Truss’s broken phone had been in a safe for several months - and it’s hard to imagine that someone would give it to her so that she would write an important message to the US State Department that would compromise both her and the government

Russian media and pro-Russian social media accounts are circulating videos with the Euronews logo and a similar style of English subtitles. The story says that supposedly the auction house Bolland & Marotz is holding an auction where participants will be able to purchase Dostoievskyi's letters, Chaikovskyi's handwritten notes, a series of Vrubel's sketches and other exhibits. Moreover, after the sale, all these exhibits will allegedly be destroyed, because Russia has discredited itself in the war with Ukraine. So the destruction of the Russian cultural heritage is a logical consequence. It is not true.

According to the Georgian fact-checkers of the MythDetector project, the story spread on behalf of Euronews is fictitious. The video is modified with computer software, the media did not prepare such a story. Auction house Bolland & Marotz also denied the organization of such an auction. The company also said that the idea of ​​such an event is contrary to internal policy.

The Russian media spread this information. The Russians assured that the book was published in Barcelona, ​​the capital of Catalonia. This action also hints at Catalonia's desire to separate from Spain through referendums. It isn't true.

Stopfake analysts found that the Russians distributed a map from a sixth-grade geography textbook, not published in Spain, but by the Ministry of Public Education of Mexico and published in 2016. The original map shows that Ukraine is depicted within the boundaries of 1991. In Russia, an ordinary map was edited with the help of a photo editor for propaganda purposes. Russian propagandists try to convince that the EU allegedly recognized the territories temporarily occupied by Russia.

In fact, the EU didn't recognize the so-called referendum. In response to the annexation of the Kherson Region, Donetsk Region, Luhansk Region, and Zaporizhzhia Region EU introduced sanctions for its organization.

Such information is spreading on social networks. The rockets allegedly flew from Belarus. This information was denied by the head of the Volyn regional military administration, Yuriy Pogulayko.

Today, October 31, everything was calm in the region during the morning air alert. With such reports, Russian propagandists are trying to frighten the population.

Because today the Russians launched missile strikes almost all over Ukraine, it is essential not to panic, remain calm, and be in a shelter in case of an alarm.

Anonymous Telegram channels controlled by the FSB write about this. With this "provocation," they will allegedly try to strengthen the anti-Russian rhetoric that it is Russia that provokes hunger in developing countries.

Russia is a terrorist country that blackmails the world with hunger. It slowed down the grain corridor for weeks before blocking it, noted President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

According to him, Russia is the only one to blame because food products will become more expensive from West Africa to East Asia. Russia is the reason why people in Ethiopia, Yemen, and Somalia are left with catastrophic food shortages.

The Russian leadership is interested in exacerbating the food crisis, so it will do everything not to sign any agreements and not to unblock the grain corridor.

The fake about the sinking of one of the grain ships is probably a signal that the Russians already have such a plan. Propagandists work to preemptively shift responsibility for their crime onto someone else in advance.

Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels distributed a fragment of the video with this caption. In fact, Russian propagandists dispersed their crimes online. Ex-commander of the "Azov" regiment Maksym Zhorin published in a telegram a video from the mass grave, which he took from the phone of the Russian occupier.

"Look carefully at the executioners. It's clear to everyone that the Russian military carried out this execution of ordinary civilians in the occupied city. The full video is now with the investigation. Russian soldiers will be identified. There will be payback!" he wrote. Russian propagandists took from Zhorin's telegram those fragments of the video. It doesn't show who is killing people, but Russian propaganda spread it, as allegedly "Azovians" killed people in Kupyansk.

Shifting responsibility for one's war crimes is a typical tactic of Russian propaganda. After mass graves with hundreds of tortured people were discovered in Bucha, Izyum, and Lyman, liberated from the Russians, propagandists launch fakes as if it isn't their fault every time.

The Russians have recently used all sorts of methods to "prove" that the Ukrainian army during the counterattack is "clearing" areas of "civilians who lived under occupation." Thus, they also want to cause distrust in the Ukrainian military, particularly the "Azovs," who have long turned into neo-Nazi horror films in Russian fakes. They want to sow fear among people before the liberation of the occupied territory.

This news was written by the Finnish publication Yle concerning an interview with the senior commissioner of the National Bureau of Investigation (Keskusrikospoliisi), Christer Algren.

The journalist claimed that the official was talking about the availability of data in the criminal police of Finland regarding the probability of weapons intended for the Ukrainian military getting to criminal groups in this country.

The material states that this firearm is already in Finland and was allegedly found in other Scandinavian countries. The Ministry of Internal Affairs believes that there is a reason to believe that the information presented in the article "was a little made up by the journalist and didn't coincide with the words of the police representative who was interviewed."

Moreover, representatives of law enforcement agencies from other countries confirmed the lack of information about a similar channel for illegally transferring weapons from Ukraine. The Finnish commissioner, in this interview, says that the investigation is ongoing and doesn't cite any evidence, only speculation.

However, based on his words, the publication spreads the Russian narrative that the weapons provided by international partners to the Ukrainian military end up with criminals in Europe.

Propagandists regularly throw such theses into social media to sow distrust in the Ukrainian army at the international level and reduce or even stop the support of Western partners.

Such messages are spreading on social networks. It`s fake.

"Ukrenergo" is the transmission system operator and does not work with consumers; therefore, it doesn't notify when each consumer or small settlement is disconnected. Accordingly, "Ukrenergo" didn't create applications for electricity consumers.

"Ukrenergo" dispatchers only have information about the power system's general consumption level and each power node. Only operators of distribution systems (Oblenergo) have information about the consumption of individual consumers or settlements. They are the ones who disconnect consumers according to the parameters provided by Ukrenergo. So, during crises, Ukrainians should trust only official sources of information.

Throughout power outages, this source is Oblenergo. Only Oblenergo can draw up any schedules of consumer restrictions and information about them or where exactly this information can be found. Oblenergo can report the outage through an announcement on the website, in the consumer's account, or their chatbots in Telegram or Viber.

The Russian media spread this information. The proof is a letter that allegedly came to a former employee of the law enforcement agencies who lives in the temporarily occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region.

The text of the letter states that the pensioner was sentenced to death for treason to Ukraine and cooperation with Russia, and the sentence will be carried out "soon."

He is given 15 days to take his family to the territory controlled by Ukraine, and if he escapes, it is hinted that his son, who is in Zaporizhzhia, may suffer. At the end of the letter, it is stated that the best option for the collaborator is to kill himself. This letter is a fake, the fact-checkers of the "On the other side of the news" ("Po toy bik novyn") project note.

Official letters from the Security Service of Ukraine must be on letterhead with details, source number, and signature. Collaborators demonstrate only text printed on paper and written in Russian. Many grammatical and punctuation errors indicate that the document is a forgery. Moreover, other errors in the letter are factual.

The letter states that the traitor was sentenced to death by the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The death penalty has been banned in Ukraine for 22 years. Its absence was a mandatory condition for our country's membership in the Council of Europe.

It isn't the first time that Russian propaganda has used fake documents to spread disinformation about the SSU. "Such statements by the occupiers are an attempt to tarnish the Ukrainian special services. In addition, the Russians and their supporters want to shift responsibility for their war crimes because it's known that the occupiers themselves are trying to "legitimize" the execution," fact-checkers note. More details.

Dozens of Russian mass media and anonymous Telegram channels spread information that the Turkish company Baykar Makina abandoned plans to build a factory in Ukraine that was supposed to produce Bayraktar drones. The original source of this message was the Telegram channel "Resident" and the Russian "war correspondent" Poddubny, StopFake, found out. Any Russian mass media provided this "information" with evidence. However, today, two days after the appearance of the fake, it was denied by the CEO of Baykar Makina Haluk Bayraktar. He claims that final arrangements have already done, and the plant will be built in two years.

Russian propaganda constantly tries to discredit the Bayraktar UAV because of its combat qualities and because it has become a symbol of Ukrainians in their resistance to Russian aggression. Moreover, there was written a song dedicated to the bayraktar.

 Pro-Kremlin mass media spread such information. Reports indicate that Poland has begun a covert mobilization, and it's allegedly evidenced by the deployment of the "Train with the Armed Forces" program. Propagandists claim that this program was reportedly created to capture and return Lviv to Poland. However, the mobilization and capture of Lviv is a fake. According to StopFake fact-checkers, this program is a pro-social initiative of the Ministry of National Defense and the Polish Army. Its purpose is to develop survival skills in an emergency or crisis. The program also aims to increase the level of security and self-confidence of the civilian population of Poland. According to the project, from October 8 to November 26, one-day training for all willing Polish citizens aged 18 to 65 will be held every Saturday in 17 military units in Poland. During the training, the participants will be able to master basic military skills: handling weapons, shooting, hand-to-hand combat, navigating the terrain without GPS, survival in the field, and providing first aid. Propagandists are once again promoting the message of Poland's seizure of Western Ukraine to intimidate Ukrainians and destabilize the situation in the rear.

Messages of this content are distributed on social networks. They refer to what is in the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah article. The USA may allegedly betray Ukraine in a war with Russia for their benefit soon; they want to abandon Ukraine without help. However, it`s a fake. The fact-checkers of the VoxCheck project drew attention to the case. They found out that, in fact, the publication didn`t quote the official position of the Turkish authorities, and in the column, the author expressed only his assumptions. The columnist criticized US policy and analyzed its possible influence on Turkey. However, the text didn`t mention that the US would betray Ukraine and abandon it without help. Propagandists need such fakes to create an image that soon major Western partners of Ukraine will refuse to support it, and Ukraine will leave its fate in the war against Russia.

The Russian propaganda media spread this thesis. Russia allegedly completed the destruction of toxic substances on September 27, 2017, as representatives of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons testified on the spot. The reports add that only one country currently has chemical weapons, the United States. However, it isn't true. Analysts of the EU vs Disinfo project drew attention to the case.

According to an experts' report, in September 2017, Russia destroyed a large stockpile of chemical weapons. As the OPCW testified at the time, these were only the remnants of declared stockpiles that Russia had been obliged to destroy since 2007 under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Analysts explain that Russia not only possesses other undeclared stockpiles but has repeatedly used chemical weapons against its alleged enemies both in Russia and abroad. In particular, this is evidenced by the attacks on Oleksiy Navalnyy, former Russian spy Serhii Skrypal, and Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev. It is important that the attacks on Skrypal and Navalnyy took place after 2017, when Russia should no longer have chemical weapons.

At the same time, it's profitable for propagandists to claim that Russia doesn't have prohibited weapons and doesn't violate the Conventions that it has ratified. This way, Russia observes all the international rules and documents that declare a false and illusory impression of it.

Such information is disseminated in Russian social networks and anonymous pro-Russian Telegram channels. In one of his speeches, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, allegedly stated that Ukraine is in a terrible financial situation and doesn't have even a cent. It is a fake. The fact-checkers of the StopFake project drew attention to the message. In fact, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine still needs to receive funding under the Fast Recovery program and reminded us that the total budget of this project is 17.4 billion US dollars. As StopFake writes, Fast Recovery is a plan that provides for the prompt restoration of the social infrastructure of Ukraine destroyed by Russia.

Fact-checkers found out that the statement of Russian propaganda that "Kyiv doesn't have a single cent" is invalid. Because as of October 2022, Ukraine has received 127 billion euros in military, humanitarian, and financial aid. This amount is equal to 63% of Ukraine's GDP for 2021. It's stated in the reports of the Kiel Institute of World Economy. However, it's beneficial for Russian propaganda to create the appearance that Ukraine is bankrupt, with no money left, despite help from Western partners. Although, of course, in the conditions of war, Ukraine has financial problems, most of which were provoked by the aggressor's attack.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia published photos on Twitter, which allegedly prove Ukraine's preparation of a "dirty bomb." They show transparent packages of radioactive material with the inscription "radioactive." It is a fake. The Slovenian government on Twitter denied the information from the Russian Foreign Ministry. These plastic bags' photos belong to the Slovenian Radioactive Waste Agency (ARAO). The warning label on the package is also in Slovenian. The photo was taken in 2010.

According to the Slovenian agency, this image was used as an illustration in specialist lectures and information materials that were available to the general public.

Slovenia has emphasized at the official level that the radioactive waste is stored safely, is under control, and hasn't been used to make "dirty bombs."

Russian media and netizens spread information that the rise in prices for chicken eggs is allegedly caused by a lack of feed in poultry farms. After the partial blockade of three ports, Ukraine allegedly "exported all the grain to Europe." It is not so. According to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, prices on the fodder market this season remain pretty low.

Moreover, the main components of chicken feed have become significantly cheaper than last year. Currently, there is a grain surplus in Ukraine due to the seaports of Ukraine previously blocked by Russia. Indeed, according to the Antimonopoly Committee of October 20, 2022, the price of eggs increased by half. According to StopFake, the main factors that will cause the increase in egg prices are: seasonality, the number of birds, an increase in the cost of feed, energy, labor, veterinary drugs, and other expenses. Also, the industrial production of eggs decreased by 25-30% due to the occupation of part of the territories of Ukraine. The Antimonopoly Committee investigates the reasons for such a significant price jump now.

In social networks, the allegedly October cover of the German satirical magazine "Titanic" with a caricature of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the inscription "eternal appetite" is being circulated. It is a fake. Such a magazine cover doesn't exist. Titanic magazine editor-in-chief Julia Matheus confirmed to Reuters fact-checkers that the pictured cover isn't the official Titanic cover. It is also not available on the publication's website. The actual October 2022 cover features King Charles III of Great Britain with the text: "Colonial Crimes: How Germany Suffered Under the British Crown." The magazine was published on September 30. It isn't the first satirical magazine whose cover was used to create fakes about Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Previously, several fake covers of the French cartoon magazine "Charlie Hebdo" and the cover of the Spanish satirical magazine "El Jueves" were also distributed.

The Russian media write about this concerning the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergey Lavrov. He once again says that the events in Bucha are "a decision of the Ukrainian authorities." The Ukrainian authorities allegedly deliberately hide the list of victims because, "in reality," there are no victims. It is a fake.

In fact, the lists of the dead were publicly available in the spring, and they were published and periodically updated by the Information Center of the Ritual Service of the Bucha City Council. However, this information was preliminary because many unidentified victims were on the list.

According to local authorities, 76 Bucha and Bucha Region residents were eventually buried unknown. In the future, they plan to identify the dead through DNA samples. In total, more than 400 residents died during the occupation. The graves of the victims of the Russian army are still being found during the liquidation of the traces of the occupation. Therefore, it is impossible to provide the final lists of the dead, as Lavrov demands. Fact-checkers of The Insider project drew attention to the spread of the fake. In this way, Russia tries to hide the crimes of its military.

Earlier, the propagandists wrote that the photo and video from Bucha were a provocation of Ukraine to get help from the West and discredit the Russian army, disrupting the peace agreements. During the de-occupation of the Kharkiv Region, anticipatory propaganda claimed that Ukraine would launch messages about Russians torturing Ukrainian civilians. At the same time, when numerous burials of dead civilians were discovered, propagandists spread the message that the exhumation of the victims' bodies in Lyman and Izyum was an insult to the bodies.