Censorship in Russia is trying to block almost the only resource that is still delivering truthful information about the war against Ukraine. That is why yesterday Roskomnadzor reported that it made a protocol on the Russian Wikipedia for not removing "unreliable information" about the war against Ukraine. On March 29, for the second time, Roskomnadzor demanded that Russian Wikipedia remove the article "Russian Invasion of Ukraine (2022)." The Roskomnadzor press service called it "false content aimed at misinforming Russian users" - because the article indicated the number of dead and wounded Ukrainian civilians, with references to UN data, as well as the number of destroyed Russian soldiers (according to the General Staff of the AFU), and also for the fact that the article calls the war a war. It was authored by Russian wikipedist Oleg Yunakov; the article was viewed 5 million times in the first week after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

For refusal to remove this article, Roskomnadzor is threatening Wikipedia with a fine of 4 million rubles (about $50,000), and almost from the beginning of the war the agency is also threatening to block Wikipedia in Russia.

Earlier, it was reported that a well-known Russian wikepedist Mark Bernstein was detained for 15 days in Belarus for allegedly resisting the police. His personal data, as well as hundreds of other Russian wikepedists after the war are published by anonymous telegram channels to put pressure on them. The Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine reports that Russian authorities and propagandists are discrediting Wikipedia in order to convince the public that any information about the war in Ukraine is fake.

This assertion is promoted by Russian propaganda media and pro-Russian TV channels. Such reports state that the so-called crisis in Ukraine came about because of U.S. and NATO policies, which allegedly "pumped weapons into Ukraine" in circumvention of agreements and laws. In reality, there is no crisis in Ukraine, as Russian propagandists call it, but a full-fledged war in which military and civilians are being killed. It was Russia, not the United States or NATO, that unleashed the war in Ukraine. As ZMIST fact-checkers, who pointed out this message, wrote, this is how Russia tries to justify its war crimes. "Again we see the transfer of responsibility to others. It's not NATO and the U.S. that have stormed into Ukraine. It's not NATO and the US destroying Ukrainian cities. It's not NATO and the US killing Ukrainian men, women and children. This is all Russia's doing," the message reads.

According to the Center for Counteracting Disinformation, this is the message spread by Russian propagandists who claim that the Ukrainian government seeks to starve Ukrainians to death and remove grain from the country. The propagandists also assure that "food security of Ukraine is under threat," "disruption of the sowing season and military operations will lead to starvation in Ukraine. According to the Center's report, these theses were invented by the Russian UN office.

"Humanitarian problems are in the temporarily occupied territories, where the enemy does not allow humanitarian supplies. In Ukraine, the Kremlin's famine message is promoted by the sub-sanctioned Telegram channel "Country Politics" and pseudo-expert Dmytro Vasilets (the "State" party, whose activities have been stopped by the decision of the NSDC)," the Center explains and adds that in fact Ukraine has supplies for domestic consumption for at least 2 years.

According to the Center for Counteracting Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Russia continues to use recruited foreign politicians to form a mistaken public opinion about its own power. According to the report, experts record the promotion of the thesis that a new world order is now being formed, which, according to experts, will be led by Russia, China and India.

"The foreign experts include former Brazilian President Lula da Silva as well as Kremlin mouthpiece political analyst Rafael Ordukhanian. Putin's media rhetoric indicates that Russia expects sanctions to ease in the near future. This is probably why the Kremlin is making statements about the partial withdrawal of Russian troops in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions," the Center says. They add that all these statements are manipulation and because none of the previous Kremlin ultimatums have been executed, the enemy is trying to mislead the international community. That is why they talk about the completion of the offensive operation in the north of Ukraine.

Anonymous telegram channels controlled by the Russian secret services regularly repeat that the state of affairs at the front is totally different from what we see on television or hear from the authorities. However, anonymous telegram channels do not give any examples.

Read more about the peculiarities of informing in wartime in the column by Otar Dovzhenko.

Telegram channels administered by Russia's intelligence services are speculating on the US president's visit to Poland. They take various quotes from Biden and other politicians who allegedly claim that Poland, despite NATO's refusal, is still sending troops to Ukraine. Propagandists do not speak unequivocally but only speculate and push.

According to the Center for Combating Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council, the materials of the opposition to the Putin regime refer to allegedly separatist plans of the Ukrainian allies regarding the territory of our state. In particular, such reports refer to the danger of the introduction of peacekeeping missions on the territory of Ukraine, as it seems to end with the "division of the territory of Ukraine" - the rollback of the territories to the state of 1939.

"Among the countries that, like Russia, seem to infringe on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, pro-Kremlin pseudo-analysts call Hungary, Romania and even Poland. After the de facto defeat of a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine and unsuccessful attempts to hold pro-Russian rallies in Serbia, Bulgaria, Armenia, and Syria, the enemy proceeded to unsuccessful demonization of individual countries. Information infusions of this kind only show that the Russian disinformation and propaganda ecosystem continues to fail, "the Center said in a statement.

Pro-Russian telegram channels spread information that rumours about Zelensky's quick escape are well-founded. Such reports assure, that the President of Ukraine may go to Brussels to meet with US President Biden, who will visit Belgium on March 24. Such texts predict that Kyiv will be blocked in a few weeks, and Zelensky will not be able to return there after the meeting.

There is no reason to claim this. There is also no official information that would confirm the planned meeting between Biden and Zelensky.

Russian politicians and the media are spreading this statement, trying to further turn citizens in Russia and abroad, especially in Germany and France, against the "collective West".

НIn fact, this statement is manipulative, as most of the sanctions imposed on Russia are aimed at the country's political leadership, elites, defense and financial sectors, etc. And the purpose of these economic measures is not to undermine the so-called potential of Russia and Belarus, it is a response to aggression and full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Such messages are spread in telegram channels controlled by the Russian secret services. In particular, this message was posted on the ‘Resident’ telegram channel. Such messages state that the United States is afraid of Putin and his threats.

In fact, this statement is manipulative and has no evidence. In this way, Russian propagandists probably want to discredit Ukraine's ally and neglect all the support Ukraine has received from the United States.

These kinds of messages are being transmitted in pro-Russian telegram channels. On the "Panchenko" telegram channel, NATO's position is characterized as cowardly due to its continuing refusals to close the skies above Ukraine. In the message, it is also said that NATO is interested in prolonging the war (even though the channel calls the war itself a conflict.) The core idea is this: the longer the war, the weaker Russia becomes and Ukraine is being pitied by no one. In reality, there are no official reasons to state the above. This rhetoric only discredits Ukrainian allies in this war.

Such a statement by the speaker of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zakharova is quoted by pro-Russian telegram channels. However, this is manipulation because even at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities called it a process of so-called denazification and demilitarization, and the current leaders of Ukraine — a bunch of Nazis.

Pro-Russian telegram channels spread the thesis that the Russian military could cross rivers without bridges, so the Ukrainian military vainly destroyed them. In such reports, the actions of the Ukrainian army are called the destruction of Ukraine, and the Russian military is praised because, according to propagandists, they can cross the river on military equipment.

The Ukrainian military blocked bridges to prevent the occupiers from advancing and occupying new Ukrainian cities.

Anonymous propagandists claim that looters pretend to be a territorial defence to "clean" apartments. They say that looters don't leave witnesses, so no one can tell about their crimes. However, if there are no witnesses and no one can tell, how do the anonymous telegram channels know about it.

Here they again draw on the narrative of "external governance" to remind us that Ukraine is a pawn of the collective West. They use a variety of metaphors and comparisons. In particular, they talk about the events in Ukraine as a TV series with screenwriters from Hollywood. The main character - Volodymyr Zelenskyy - can quickly become an antihero or die mysteriously at the end of the series.

In particular, subscribers of one of such channels (“Сплетница”/the Gossip Girl) ask: "if Ukraine does not declare war on Russia, does it recognize that it is only a special operation to clean the country from the Nazis?"".

In fact, it is a manipulation. Ukraine imposed martial law and recognized Russia's aggression against Ukraine as a real war since February 24, the first day of Russia's full-scale invasion. This way, using manipulations, the aggressor seeks to shake up the situation and reduce Ukrainians’ confidence in their government.

The country's leadership has repeatedly stated that Ukraine provides all captives with necessary medical help. By spreading such a statement propagandists want to discredit the Ukrainian army.

They spread stories, supposedly from «witnesses», who are afraid to die not from Russian invaders but from armed Ukrainian citizens. Propagandists try to reassure people about those who joined the territorial defense. They claim territorial defenders as vigilantes, who now have legal weapons. Russian propaganda machine is trying to undermine people`s trust in territorial defense and disrupt the esprit of the Ukrainian defenders.

“Please do not pick up the phone from contacts you do not know, especially if they are frequently repeated and displayed from different geographical points. We urge everyone to ignore such information terrorism and explain to relatives that threats and misinformation do not pose a threat to your life, but are intended solely to shake the psychological state", the Center said.

They claim that the entire infrastructure of Ukraine is destroyed. So Ukraine will not be accepted into the EU. They assure that the EU will feed Ukraine with promises, but no one will accept or give real funds for reconstruction.

They claim that Ukraine and the West have conspired to overthrow Putin's regime "with the help of the Ukrainian case."

They got an old manual on "external governance" and began to explain why Europe and the world will not really help Ukraine, invest money here and join the EU. Propagandists repeated the narrative of "Ukraine as a colony", saying that no one will take on foot, only pretend. The propagandists underestimate all the statements of European politicians in support of Ukraine because they explain that they just pretend.

Therefore, they have created several conspiracy theories on why the Ukrainian civilian population are not being evacuated from the cities with the life threat. Key points of Russian disinformation are the following: “no centralized evacuation means that the Ukrainian government wants the war and spends all its resources solely on the war”; “civilians are not being evacuated on purpose so that the number of deaths among civilian population is higher and Russia could be blamed for this”; “civilians will be forced to participate in the war”. In fact, evacuation of civilians in the time when a city or village is under shelling - is dangerous. Evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people under shelling and no access to shelters in an empty field impose more threat than protecting them in a city.

They claim that the President's Office is not interested in peace and wants a "war to the last". In his statement, Volodymyr Zelensky explained: “I will say frankly, as always, I do not really believe in the outcome of this meeting, but let them try. So that no Ukrainian citizen would have doubts that, as president, I did not try to stop the war, when there was even a small, but still a chance."

Such channels say that they talked to Ukrainians or received messages from subscribers. This information is not true. On the contrary, information about solidarity and assistance to those in need is coming from different parts of the country.