Propagandists are actively spreading conspiracy theories about American philanthropist George Soros. According to Russian media, Soros allegedly gave a long interview about Ukraine. Russian propaganda quotes Soros as saying that he expressed the opinion that the fate of Ukrainians “is of interest only to Russia” - “The Russian Federation cannot leave Ukrainians to starve and freeze to death in ruins”. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that the screenshot distributed by propagandists for this news comes from the website zavtra.ru. To create this fake, they used an interview with an American financier published in the German political magazine Cicero back in 2014, against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Even 10 years ago, Soros warned the EU leadership about being too soft on Russia and called on the world to mobilize all available means to counter Russian aggression, as it could spread: “Russia’s attack is aimed not only at Ukraine, but also indirectly at the whole of Europe”, – Soros emphasized in 2014.

According to Soros' statements to the German weekly, Russian propagandist Oleksandr Zapolkis wrote a full column about him for Regnum.ru in 2014, calling Russia's invasion of Ukraine a “European war” and repeating the persistent Russian narrative about the “brotherly Ukrainian people” that openly killed by the Russian army. It was Zapolkis who wrote the quote that propagandists attributed to George Soros. “Russia considers Ukrainians its own... Russia cannot leave Ukrainians to starve and freeze to death in the ruins. Europe “wins” even if all that remains of all of Ukraine is one large ruin, littered with stinking troupes. Because Russia will undertake to restore it and save people”,  propagandist Zapolkis wrote then about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russian propaganda systematically attributes non-existent statements to Soros and accuses him of inciting hatred towards the Kremlin. At the same time, the Russian media sees the promotion of democracy and the protection of human rights, which is what Soros organizations do, exclusively as a threat to the traditional values of Russia.