Russian propagandists began disseminating information on social networks that in Lviv local residents allegedly refuse to rent out housing to internally displaced persons from the east of the country. In such messages, propagandists add supposedly real images from Ukrainian portals of rental advertisements and comment: “It seems that history is repeating itself: in Lviv they are not ready to provide housing to refugees from Kharkiv and Sumy, in some cases demanding twice as much from them. This splits the unity of the people”. However, this is fake.

In response, the StopFake organization conducted its own investigation into the presence of such advertisements on Ukrainian platforms for searching for housing. They found that this information was not true.

Propagandists publish screenshots, hiding the names of resources and contact information of landlords. However, StopFake was able to find these advertisements by checking well-known Ukrainian rental sites. One of them was allegedly posted on Nedviga-Pro, and the second on Rieltor.ua, as indicated by the same photographs, addresses, prices and characteristics of apartments, as well as website design. The descriptions of rental conditions in the screenshots of the promoters and in the advertisements found on the websites differ. In the original advertisements there is no mention of the refusal to rent out housing to residents of the eastern part of Ukraine.

StopFake also contacted the realtor through an ad on Rieltor.ua, asking about the possibility of renting an apartment by people from Kharkiv, and received the answer that “there are no problems with this”. They did not contact a realtor regarding the advertisement from Nedviga-Pro, since the apartment had already been rented out at the time of publication of the material.

So, Russian propagandists took genuine advertisements from Ukrainian real estate portals and, changing their description, tried to concoct another fake, the purpose of which was to discredit Ukraine and deepen the rift in society.