As part of theRussian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian state andstate-controlled media have spreaddisinformation in theirinformation war against Ukraine.[1] Ukrainian media and politicians have also been accused of using propaganda and deception, although such efforts have been described as more limited than the Russian disinformation campaign.[2]
Russianpropaganda andfake news stories have attacked Ukraine'sright to exist and accused it of being aneo-Nazi state, committinggenocide against Russian speakers,developing nuclear and biological weapons, and beinginfluenced by Satanism. Russian propaganda also accusesNATO of controlling Ukraine and building up military infrastructure in Ukraine tothreaten Russia. Some of this disinformation has been spread by so-calledRussian web brigades. Russian claims have been widely rejected as untrue and crafted to justify the invasion and even to justifygenocidal acts against Ukrainians. The Russian state has denied carrying outwar crimes in Ukraine, and Russian media has falsely blamed some of them on Ukrainian forces instead. Some of the disinformation seeks to undermine international support for Ukraine and to provoke hostility againstUkrainian refugees.
Russian disinformation has been pervasive and successful in Russia itself, due tocensorship of war news andstate control of most media. Because of the amount of disinformation, Russian media has been restricted and its reputation has been tarnished in manyWestern anddeveloped countries. Russia has been more successful spreading disinformation in theGlobal South, particularly in theSahel region ofAfrica, where Russia uses private military companies to support local regimes (seeWagner Group activities in Africa).[3][4][5][6][7]
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Disinformation (a lie or exaggeration meant to sway opinion) has been spread by the Russian state, state-controlled media, propagandists, and Russian web brigades as part of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Its purpose is to build support for Russia's invasion, and to weaken opposition to the war.[9][10][11][12] It also seeks to sow disunity among Western countries who support Ukraine; to counter NATO; and to cover up or createplausible deniability for Russian war crimes.[13]
Russian documents were obtained and filed in court by the FBI, which outline a Russian operation to manipulate influential people in Europe and to target people on social media with posts, comments and fake news. The goal being to sow division, undermine support for Ukraine, and discredit Ukraine's allies using psychological warfare. The documents identified Germany as particularly vulnerable to Russian influence.[14]
The following are common themes in Russian propaganda and disinformation, along with some of the common rebuttals.
Russian propaganda has attacked Ukrainiannationhood andnational identity, portrayingUkrainians as "Little Russians" or "part of anall-Russian nation". This has been a theme inRussian imperialist and nationalist rhetoric since the seventeenth century. Russian PresidentVladimir Putin has long questioned the Ukrainian people's identity[16] and the country's legitimacy.[17] In his 2021 essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians", Putin called Russians and Ukrainians "one people" and claimed there is "no historical basis" for the "idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians".[18] Since then, Russia's official and media narrative is that Ukraine has always been Russian.[18] In announcing the invasion, Putin repeatedly denied Ukraine'sright to exist, claiming that it was created by the RussianBolsheviks and that it never had "real statehood".[19] In June 2025, Putin declared that "all of Ukraine is ours" because he considers Russians and Ukrainians to be "one people".[20]
Björn Alexander Düben, professor of international affairs, writes that "Putin's historical claims do not hold up to serious academic scrutiny" and that he is "embracing aneo-imperialist account that exalts Russia's centuries-long repressive rule over Ukraine, while simultaneously presenting Russia as a victim of 'US imperialism'".[18]
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of theSecurity Council of Russia and former Russian president, has called Ukraine part of Russia.[21] He wrote that "Ukraine is NOT a country, but artificially collected territories" and thatUkrainian "is NOT a language" but a "mongrel dialect" of Russian.[22] He has said that Ukraine should not exist in any form and that Russia will continue to wage war against any independent Ukrainian state.[23]
Such denial of nationhood is said to be part of a campaign ofincitement to genocide by Russian authorities.[24][25]United Nations special rapporteurs have condemned the Russian occupation authorities for attempting "to erase local [Ukrainian] culture, history, and language" and to forcibly replace them with Russian language and culture.[26]
After the2014 Ukrainian Revolution, Russian rhetoric portrayed Ukrainian governments as illegitimate, calling them the "Kyiv regime" or "junta".[27][28] Putin said they were "led by a band of drug addicts and neo-Nazis",[29] and claimed Ukraine is "under external control" by the West or the United States.[30]
The official governmental website of Ukraine says that Ukrainians consider themselves an independent nation.[31] A poll conducted in April 2022 by "Rating" found that the vast majority (91%) of Ukrainians (excluding theRussian-occupied territories) do not support the thesis that "Russians and Ukrainians are one people".[32]
Putin falsely claimed that the Ukrainian government wereneo-Nazis and announced that one of his goals was the "de-Nazification of Ukraine". Putin's claims were repeated by Russian Foreign MinisterSergey Lavrov in a speech to theUN Human Rights Council; many diplomats walked out in protest.[33][34][35] These claims were repeated in Russian media to justify the war.[36] In April 2022, Russian state-owned news agencyRIA Novosti published an article by Timofey Sergeytsev, "What Russia should do with Ukraine", where he argued that Ukraine and Ukrainian national identity must be wiped out, because he claimed most Ukrainians are at least "passive Nazis".[37][38][39] By May, references to de-Nazifying Ukraine in Russian media began to wane, reportedly because it had not gained traction with the Russian public.[40]
These allegations ofNazism are widely rejected as untrue and part of a Russian disinformation campaign to justify the invasion, with many pointing out that Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and had relatives who were victims ofthe Holocaust.[41] Some of the world's leading historians of Nazism and the Holocaust put out a statement rejecting Putin's claims, which was signed by hundreds of other historians and scholars of the subject. It says:
"We strongly reject the Russian government's ... equation of the Ukrainian state with the Nazi regime to justify its unprovoked aggression. This rhetoric is factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive to the memory of millions of victims of Nazism and those who courageously fought against it."[42]
The authors say that Ukraine "has right-wing extremists and violent xenophobic groups" like any country, but "none of this justifies the Russian aggression and the gross mischaracterization of Ukraine".[42] TheAuschwitz-Birkenau State Museum denounced Putin's claims, saying "once again, innocent people are being killed purely because of insane pseudo-imperial megalomania".[43] TheUS Holocaust Memorial Museum andYad Vashem condemned Putin's abuse of Holocaust history.[44][45]Ukrainian Jews likewise rejected claims of Ukraine being a neo-Nazi state.[46]
Kremlin claims of Nazism against Ukraine are partly an attempt to drum-up support for the war among its citizens. Russian propaganda has framed it as a continuation of the Soviet Union's "Great Patriotic War" againstNazi Germany, even though Russia supports far-right groups across Europe.[47][48] In the words of Miriam Berger forThe Washington Post, "the rhetoric of the 'fight againstfascism' resonates deeply in Russia, which suffered huge losses in the fight against Nazi Germany".[49] SomeSoviet imagery was used as part of this propaganda drive, and Ukrainian flags were replaced withVictory Banners in someoccupied towns.[50][51]
Experts on disinformation say that Russia's portrayal of Ukrainians as Nazis helps them justifyRussian war crimes;[36] Russia's UN representative justified theHroza missile attack in this way.[52] HistorianTimothy Snyder said the Russian regime calls Ukrainians "Nazis" to justifygenocidal acts against them. He said pro-war Russians use "Nazi" to mean "a Ukrainian who refuses to be Russian".[53] Russian neo-fascistAleksandr Dugin proposed to simply "identify Ukrainian Nazism withRussophobia". Dugin argued that Russia should be the only country allowed to define Ukrainian Nazism and Russophobia, in the same way that Jews have what he calls a "monopoly" on the definition of antisemitism.[54]
Article 16 of theConstitution of Ukraine states: "To ensure ecological safety and to maintain the ecological balance on the territory of Ukraine, to overcome the consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe - a catastrophe of global scale, and to preserve the gene pool of the Ukrainian people, is the duty of the State". A number of pro-Russian online accounts have used this sentence to claim it proved Ukrainians are "fascists" and "Nazis". In reality, this article of the Constitution only affirms the protection for people who faced adverse health and ecological impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.[55] Article 24 of the Constitution states that "There shall be no privileges or restrictions based on race, colour of skin, political, religious and other beliefs, sex, ethnic and social origin, property status, place of residence, linguistic or other characteristics".[56]
Ukrainian officials respond that Russia's own actions in Ukraine are like those of Nazi Germany,[57][52] and some commentators, including Snyder,[53] have likened Putin's Russia to a fascist state (seeRuscism).[58][59][60][61] Many Russian units who took part in the invasion are linked to neo-Nazism themselves, including theRusich Group and Kremlin-sponsoredWagner Group.[62][63][64] Other openly neo-Nazi groups have been involved in recruiting, training and fighting on the Russian side, such as theRussian Imperial Legion,AAST andAtomwaffen Division Russland.[65][66][67][68]Russian far-right groups also played a major role among theRussian proxy forces in Donbas.[69][70]
Like many countries, Ukrainehas a far-right fringe, such asRight Sector andSvoboda.[71][72] Analysts generally agree that the Russian government greatly exaggerates far-right influence in Ukraine, as there is no widespread support for far-right ideology in the government, military, or electorate.[73][74] In the2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, a coalition of far-right parties including Right Sector received only 2% of votes and did not win any seats.[75] Ukraine'sAzov Brigade began as a far-right volunteer militia. It was a focus of Kremlin propaganda, which falsely claimed they were "anti-Russian neo-Nazis persecuting ethnic Russians". Azov has been mentioned on Russian TV more often than Putin's ruling United Russia party.[76] By the time of the invasion, the brigade had been largely de-politicized.[77][78][79] A 2022Counter Extremism Project report concluded that the Azov Brigade can no longer be defined as neo-Nazi.[80][81]
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In his announcement of the invasion, Putin baselessly claimed that Ukraine was carrying outgenocide in the mainly Russian-speakingDonbas region.[82] He said the purpose of Russia's "military operation" was to "protect the people" of the Russian-controlled breakawayrepublics of Donetsk andLuhansk. Putin claimed they had been facing "genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime" for eight years.[82] There is no evidence for Putin's claims of genocide, and they have been widely rejected as apretext for invasion.[82][83][84][9][85][86] TheEuropean Commission called the allegations "Russian disinformation".[87] Over 300 scholars on genocide issued a statement rejecting Russia's abuse of the term "genocide" to "justify its own violence".[88] Ukraine broughta case before theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) to challenge Russia's claim. The ICJ said it had not seen any evidence of genocide by Ukraine.[89]
Altogether,about 14,300 people were killed in theDonbas War, both soldiers and civilians. According to theOffice of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 6,500 were Russian proxy forces, 4,400 were Ukrainian forces, and 3,404 were civilians on both sides of the frontline.[90] The vast majority of civilian deaths were in the first year,[90] and the death rate in the Donbas War was actually falling before the 2022 Russian invasion: in 2019 there were 27 conflict-related civilian deaths, in 2020 there were 26 deaths, and in 2021 there were 25 deaths, over half of them from mines andunexploded ordnance.[90] By comparison, after Russia's full-scale invasion, 4,163 civilians were killed in March 2022,[91] meaning that more civilians died in that one month alone than in the entire eight years of the Donbas War. Since the invasion, Russian state-controlled media and pro-KremlinTelegram channels falsely accused Ukrainian troops of attacking civilian targets inMariupol and bombing Ukrainian cities.[92][93][94] According to Russian websiteBumaga, an anonymous former employee ofYevgeny Prigozhin's media company "Patriot" said that most of their reports about "victims of Ukrainian Armed Forces" in Donbas were staged.[95][96]
An excerpt from a speech given by former Ukrainian PresidentPetro Poroshenko, taken out of context, began spreading on social media. He appeared to claim, among other things, that he will force children in Donbas to sleep in cellars and that he will restrict Donbas residents from accessing any public services. In his full speech, Poroshenko does not claim that Ukraine will mistreat Donbas residents, but rather that the occupation of Donbas bypro-Russian separatists is causing suffering for local residents. Therefore, by comparing their appalling living conditions with those of Ukrainian citizens, Ukraine could win the war in Donbas simply due to popular discontent on the other side.[97]
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Russian propaganda often claims thatNATO and its "eastward expansion" provoked the invasion and that Russia had to invade Ukraine in self-defense.[98] In his two speeches just before the invasion, Putin said thatUkraine joining NATO would be a threat, and warned that NATO might use Ukraine to launch a surprise attack on Russia. He falsely claimed that NATO was building up its forces and military infrastructure in Ukraine, and that the Ukrainian military was under NATO control.[99][100] Russian state media falsely claimed that thousands of NATO soldiers had been killed in the invasion.[101]
Although it seeks to join, Ukraine is not a member of NATO; acollective security alliance of 32 member states, similar to the Russian-ledCSTO.[102] In 1999, Russia signed theCharter for European Security, affirming the right of each state to choose its security arrangements and join alliances if they wish.[103]
Putin claimed that NATO broke a promise not to let any Eastern European countries join. This unwritten promise was allegedly made by American and German diplomats to Soviet leaderMikhail Gorbachev in 1990, but the diplomats and NATO denied ever making any formal proposal.[104][102][105] Such a promise was never included in any treaty,[106] and theSoviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. From then until the Russian invasion, 14 Eastern European countries willingly joined NATO. Political scientist Filip Kostelka says many of these countries sought NATO membership "to protect themselves from the Russian threat. They did not need to be pushed".[107] The last time a country bordering Russia had joined NATO prior to the invasion was in 2004.[108]
Putin has not always opposed NATO. According toMichael McFaul and Robert Person, this suggests Putin did not truly believe it to be a military threat.[109][110] In 2002, Putin said Ukraine's relationship with NATO was not Russia's concern.[109] Russia did not make threats about theBaltic states joining NATO in 2004.[109] Putin said in 2005 that if Ukraine wanted to join NATO, "we will respect their choice, because it is their sovereign right to decide their own defence policy, and this will not worsen relations between our countries".[111][112] It was not until his2007 Munich speech that Putin openly opposed NATO enlargement. Nevertheless, Russia deepenedco-operation with NATO in 2010,[110] and the two continued to co-operate until Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.[102]
When Russiaoccupied Crimea andinvaded the Donbas in 2014, Ukraine was officially aneutral country and was not seeking NATO membership.[113][114][115] In December 2014, Ukraine's parliament voted to end this neutral status in response to Russia's aggression,[116] and Ukraine only applied to join NATO in response to the 2022 invasion.Steven Pifer thus argues that Russia's own aggressive actions have done the most to push Ukraine towards NATO.[117] When Russia invaded in 2022, Ukraine was a long way from membership.[110] Members of the alliance have been wary of letting Ukraine join, partly due to Putin's warnings.[118]
Russia's invasion ledFinland to join NATO, doubling the length of Russia's border with NATO.[119] Putin said that Finland's membership was not a threat, unlike Ukraine's, but warned against any military buildup in Finland.[120]
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Peter Dickinson of theAtlantic Council suggested the real reason Putin opposes NATO is not because he believes it is a threat, but because it "prevents him from bullying Russia's neighbors".[121] Tom Casier writes that Russia's annexation of southeastern Ukraine reveals that the real motive for the invasion is to create a "Greater Russia".[122]
Shortly beforehis death in a plane crash, Russian oligarchYevgeny Prigozhin accused the Russian military leadership of lying about NATO aggression to justify the invasion.[123] Prigozhin was a close ally of Putin and his Wagner Group played an important role in the invasion.[124]
An article published by theInstitute for the Study of War concluded:
"Putin didn't invade Ukraine in 2022 because he feared NATO. He invaded because he believed that NATO was weak, that his efforts to regain control of Ukraine by other means had failed, and that installing a pro-Russian government in Kyiv would be safe and easy. His aim was not to defend Russia against some non-existent threat but rather to expand Russia's power, eradicate Ukraine's statehood, and destroy NATO, goals he still pursues".[125]
The Russian government accused NATO of waging a "proxy war" against Russia, because its members have sentmilitary aid to Ukraine after the invasion.[126] Russian state media falsely claimed that some Ukrainian military units fighting the invasion were under NATO command.[99][127] NATO says it is not at war with Russia, but supports Ukraine's "right to self-defense, as enshrined in theUN Charter".[102]Lawrence Freedman wrote that calling Ukraine a NATO "proxy" wrongly implied that "Ukrainians are only fighting because NATO put them up to it, rather than because of the more obvious reason that they have been subjected to a vicious invasion". He said that any weakening of Russia caused by the war would result from "Moscow's folly ...not NATO's intent".[128] Geraint Hughes said that calling Ukraine NATO's "proxy" insults and belittles Ukrainians, denies their autonomy and implies they do not really have the will to defend their country.[126]
Countering claims of NATO waging a proxy war, it is pointed out that NATO states have actually been slow in sending weaponry to Ukraine, especially advanced weapons, and they prevented Ukraine from firing those weapons into Russia.[129] NATO refused to enforce ano-fly zone over Ukraine,[128] and the US told Ukraine to stop attacking refineries andearly-warning radars in Russia.[130][131]
TheRussian President has claimed that during thepeace negotiations in Istanbul,British Prime MinisterBoris Johnson was to blame for their failure after instigating Ukrainian diplomats not to sign any peace agreement that was about to be ratified.Davyd Arakhamia,People's Deputy of Ukraine, andVolodymyr Zelenskyy,President of Ukraine, denied the claim, clarifying that there was no agreement about to be signed, that the failure of these negotiations was due to the disparate positions between the two parties, and only after their failure and back inKyiv,Boris Johnson did not at any time pressure the Ukrainian delegation to change its position.[132][133]
Russia has falsely asserted several times that Ukraine is not asovereign country, but its government is controlled by foreign powers whose companies, banks and investment funds likeBlackRock orVanguard control a large portion of Ukrainian soil and forbid to bury Ukrainian corpses below it. However, underUkrainian law, foreignmarket agents like corporations and individuals are not allowed to own Ukrainian land.[134][135][136][137]
Many people outside Ukraine, including politicians and commentators, regard 24 February 2022 as the start of Russia's war with Ukraine.[138] According to political scientistAndreas Umland and co-authors, this approach diminishes the significance of the 2014Russian seizure of Ukrainian Crimea and itsmilitary operation in the Ukrainian Donbas. This line of argument helps Russian propaganda present a justification for its aggression.[138] Umland regards 20 February 2014 as the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.[138] On that day, a column of Russian armored vehicles departedSevastopol’s Cossack Bay,[139] and the same date is engraved on the RussianCrimea campaign medal.[138] Most researchers, however, prefer 27 February 2014, when Russian forcesoccupied the Crimean parliament.[140][141][142]
Shortly before the beginning of thefull-scale invasion in 2022, theRussian government denied that such an invasion would take place.[143][144][145]
On 18 February 2022, the Luhansk People's Republic showed a video purportedly showing removal of a car full of explosives prepared to blow up a train full of women and children evacuating to Russia. The video'smetadata showed that it had been recorded on 12 June 2019.[146]
The breakaway Donetsk People's Republic also released a video on 18 February 2022 that claimed to showPoles trying to blow up a chlorine tank. The video was further distributed by Russian media. The video's metadata showed that it was created on 8 February 2022, and included different pieces of audio or video, including a 2010YouTube video from a military firing range inFinland.[146][9] Ukrainian intelligence attributed responsibility for the video to the Russian intelligence serviceGRU.[9]
According to Bellingcat, a supposed bombing of a "separatist police chief" by a "Ukrainian spy", broadcast on Russian state television, showed visual evidence of the bombing of an old "green army vehicle". The old car's registration plate was that of the separatist police chief, but the same licence plate was also seen on a different, newSUV.[10][146][9]
On 22 February 2022, the Russian people's militias in Ukraine accused Ukraine of a "terrorist attack" that killed three civilians in a car on the Donetsk-Gorlovka highway.[147]France 24 described the incident as afalse flag attempt with corpses likely coming from a morgue to set up the scene.[148]
On 7 September 2022, at theEastern Economic Forum, Putin claimed that Russia did not "start" any military operations, but was only trying to end those that started in 2014, after a "coup d’état in Ukraine".[149] Conversely,Russia's annexation of Crimea in February 2014 is regarded as the start of theRusso-Ukrainian War.[150]
Before Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the intensity of the hostilities in the Donbas had been steadily declining since the signing of theMinsk agreements in February 2015.[151]
In March 2022, Russia alleged that Ukraine was developing biological weapons in a network of labs linked to the US.[152] TheMinistry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China and Chinese state media amplified Russian claims.[153]QAnon promoters also echo disinformation.[154][155] BBC Reality Check found no evidence supporting the claims.[156] TheUnited Nations and theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists also refuted this.[155][157][158] Russian biologists in and outside of Russia have debunked the claims, calling the allegations "transparently false".[159]
According to researcher Adam Rawnsley, the Kremlin has a history of discrediting ordinary biology labs in former Soviet republics, and previously spread conspiracy theories aboutGeorgia andKazakhstan similar to those deployed against Ukraine.[160][161]
Prior to March 2022, theRussian Ministry of Defence made unsubstantiated accusations that the United States wasmanufacturing bio-weapons in Ukraine. In March the Ministry followed up with another conspiracy theory: the US was training birds to spread disease in Ukraine among Russian citizens, according to Major GeneralIgor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Ministry of Russian state-controlled media. He mentioned specific details, including a strain of influenza with 50% mortality, andNewcastle disease. Media reports included maps, documents, and photos of birds with American military insignia, and claimed that infected birds had been captured alive in eastern Ukraine.[162][163]
A U.S. State Department spokesman laughed these claims off and called them "outright lies", "total nonsense", "absurd", "laughable" and "propaganda". CIA Director William Burns told the U.S.Senate that Russia made these claims to prepare the terrain for a biological or chemical attack against Ukraine, which they would then blame on the United States and Ukraine.[162][163]
On 28 October 2022Vasily Nebenzya,Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, accused Ukraine of using drones with "combatmosquitoes" which spread "dangerous viruses".[164]
In March 2022, Russian state-controlled news agencies claimed, without evidence, that Ukraine was developing aplutonium-baseddirty bomb nuclear weapon at theChernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.[165]
In a series of calls to foreign defence officials made in October 2022,Russian Minister of DefenceSergei Shoigu similarly claimed that Ukraine was preparing a "provocation" involving the use of a dirty bomb.[166][167] TheInstitute for the Study of War suggested a desire to slow or suspendforeign aid to Ukraine as a possible motive for the allegations.[166] Theforeign ministries of France,the United Kingdom andthe United States rejected "Russia's transparently false allegations".[166] In a briefing, the Russian Ministry of Defence used photos of theBeloyarsk Nuclear Power Station, theNovosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant, theaftermath of the September 11 attacks, and a photo from a 2010 presentation by the SlovenianRadioactive Waste Management Agency [sl] as "evidence" for its claims.[168]
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity were recorded and extensively documented, including attacks on civilians and energy-related infrastructure, wilful killings, unlawful confinement,torture,rape, and unlawful deportations of children.[169] Russian officials denied the war crimes perpetrated by Russian forces. Russian Foreign MinisterSergey Lavrov called theBucha massacre a "fake attack" against Russia, claiming it was staged. He said that Russian forces had left Bucha on 30 March while evidence of killings had emerged, according to him, four days later.[170]
On 4 April at the United Nations, Russian representative Vasily Nebenzya said that the bodies in the videos were not there when Russian forces withdrew from Bucha.[171] This was contradicted by satellite images showing that the bodies were there as early as 19 March;[172] the position of the corpses in the satellite images matches the smartphone photos taken in early April.[173]
TheRussian Defence Ministry's Telegram channel said Russian forces did not target civilians during the battle. According to them, a massacre could not have been covered up by the Russian military, and the mass grave in the city was filled with victims of Ukrainian airstrikes. The Ministry said it had analyzed a video purporting to show the bodies of dead civilians in Bucha, and the corpses were moving. The BBC's Moscow office investigated this claim and concluded there was no evidence the video had been staged.[174] Russia also released a video that, according to the Kremlin, showed a corpse supposedly moving, although this was quickly deemed false after investigations byfact-checking websites determined that it was a corpse reflected in the rearview mirror of a car.[175][176]
Another attempt to depict the massacre as fake aired on the Russian state television channelRussia-24, using a video that the channel claimed showed Ukrainians arranging mannequins in order to "stage" the Bucha massacre. The footage was quickly identified as coming from a television set filmed inSaint Petersburg. Workers for the television show confirmed that the video was from a Russian television show.[177] Similarly, a video showing Ukrainian soldiers pulling dead bodies with cables in Bucha was widely shared by pro-Russian social media, supposedly to prove that the scene was staged. The provenance of the video is the Associated Press; its report explains that the use of cables was due to concern of the dead bodies being possiblybooby-trapped.[178][179] Videos showing Ukrainian forces searching for explosives under the corpses, falsely claiming they were placing the bodies to fake the massacre, were also shared in social media.[180][181][182] Russian officials also blamed Ukrainian forces for theMariupol theatre airstrike,[183] though independent sources confirmed that Russia was responsible.[184]
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In November 2022, Putin's spokesmanDmitry Peskov denied that the Russian military wasattacking civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. According to Peskov, the Russian army only attacked targets directly or indirectly connected to military potential. In January 2023, the Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed their responsibility for theDnipro residential building airstrike, which killed over 40 civilians.[185] But Peskov said that Russian forces never attack residential buildings and the residential building probably collapsed because of a Ukrainian air defence counterattack.[186]
In December 2022,Russian opposition politicianIlya Yashin was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for his statements about the killings in Bucha on charges of "spreading false information" about the armed forces. Yashin was tried over a YouTube video released in April 2022 in which he discussed the discovery of murdered Ukrainian civilians in the suburban town ofBucha, near Kyiv.[187] In February 2023, Russian journalistMaria Ponomarenko was sentenced to six years in prison for publishing information about the Mariupol theatre airstrike.[188]
In May 2022, Russian state media claimed that Ukraine was using black magic to fend off the Russian military.RIA Novosti said that evidence of black magic had been found in an eastern Ukrainian village; according to their report, Ukrainian soldiers had allegedly consecrated their weapons "with blood magick" at a location with a "satanic seal".[189]
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia'sSecurity Council and also a former Russian president and prime minister, described the invasion as a sacred war against Satan.[190]Vladimir Solovyov, a presenter on state-owned channelRussia-1, also called the invasion a "holy war" against "Satanists" and said Russia is up against fifty countries "united by Satanism".[191]
Assistant secretary of Russia's Security Council Aleksey Pavlov called for the "de-Satanisation" of Ukraine in October 2022, claiming that the country had turned into a "totalitarianhypersect".[192] In an article for the Russian state-ownedArgumenty i Fakty newspaper, he identified theChabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Jewish movement as one of the "hundreds ofneo-pagan cults" operating in Ukraine. Russia's chiefrabbi,Berel Lazar, wrote a letter to Russian authorities, asking them to condemn Pavlov's comments, which he described as "a new variety of oldblood libels".[193] About 70% of Ukrainians are religious, and half of those attend religious services.[194]
In March 2022, videos were discovered purporting to show Ukrainian-produced disinformation about missile strikes inside Ukraine which were then "debunked" as some other event outside Ukraine. However, this may be the first case of a disinformation false-flag operation,[195] as the original, supposedly "Ukraine-produced" disinformation was never disseminated by anyone, and was in fact preventive disinformation created specifically to be debunked and cause confusion and mitigate the impact on the Russian public of real footage of Russian strikes within Ukraine that may get past Russian-controlled media. According to Patrick Warren, head of Clemson's Media Forensics Hub, "It's like Russians actually pretending to be Ukrainians spreading disinformation. ... The reason that it's so effective is because you don't actually have to convince someone that it's true. It's sufficient to make people uncertain as to what they should trust."[195]
TheOlenivka prison massacre, described by most independent experts as a Russian-orchestrated sabotage, has been reported by Russian media as a missile attack by Ukraine. While the exact cause of the incident has still not been conclusively confirmed, most experts conclude the Russian version highly improbable.[196][197][198][199]
The Russian state media agency TASS claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fled Kyiv following the invasion and also that he had surrendered. Zelenskyy used social media to post statements, videos and photos to counter the Russian disinformation.[200][201]
Russian state-owned television channel Russia-1 spread false claims that Zelenskyy fled Ukraine following the10 October 2022 missile strikes.[202]
Fake videos made withartificial intelligence were created as part of apropaganda war against Ukraine and shared insocial media. These included depictions of children in theUkrainian Armed Forces, fake ads targeting children encouraging them to denounce critics of theUkrainian government, or fictitious statements byUkrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy usingdeepfake technology about the country's surrender, among others.[203][204][205][206][207][208]
Russian disinformation has also attempted to promote anti-refugee sentiments in Poland and other countries with an influx of mostly Ukrainian refugees from the war. Social media accounts with ties to Russia have promoted stories of refugees committing crimes or being unfairly privileged, or about locals discriminating against refugees (in particular, against black and non-Ukrainian refugees). Such disinformation is intended to weaken international support for Ukraine.[209]
The law of Ukraine "On Protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language" approved on 25 April 2019, gives priority to theUkrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular inpublic administration, media, education, science, culture, advertising,services. However, it does not regulate private communication nor ban the use ofRussian language in the country, contrary to what some online claims created by Russia have asserted.[210][211][212] Russian remains a widely used language in Ukraine in pop culture and in informal andbusiness communication.[213]
On 20 August 2024, theVerkhovna Rada of Ukraine banned theRussian Orthodox Church in Ukraine by adopting theLaw of Ukraine "On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activities of Religious Organizations".[214][215] Ukrainian religious organizations affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church will be banned 9 months from the moment theState Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolicy and Freedom of Conscience [uk] issues the order, if this religious organization does not sever relations with the Russian Orthodox Church in accordance withOrthodox canon law.[216][217][218] This prohibition did not extend toEastern Orthodoxy in general, contrary to what someonline claims asserted.[219][220]
A number of fabricatedCNN headlines and stories went viral on social media,[221] including of a faked image of CNN reporting thatSteven Seagal had been seen alongside the Russian military,[221] false tweets claiming that a CNN journalist had been killed in Ukraine,[221][222] a CNNlower third that was digitally altered to include a claim that Putin had issued a statement warning India not to interfere in the conflict,[221][223] and another that was altered to claim that Putin planned to delay the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine until "Biden delivers weapons to Ukraine for Russia to capture",[224] as well as a fabricated CNN tweet supposedly reporting on a figure referred to as "the Kharkiv Kid finder" alongside an image that actually portrayed the YouTuberVaush, who lives in the US and was not in Kharkiv at the time.[225]
Other Western stations, including theBBC,DW andEuronews, have seen similar fakes distributed.[226]
Hoaxes about crucified civilians and soldiers by theUkrainian military were deliberately spread by the Kremlin.[227] One story claimed that Ukrainian soldierscrucified a three-year-old boy at "Lenin Square" inSloviansk.[228] Investigative journalists from the Russian news outletsNovaya Gazeta andTV Rain, who visited Sloviansk, did not find any evidence to support the allegations. They also noted the absence of audio or video footage of the incident, which was unusual since actions of the Ukrainian army in the city were otherwise well documented at the time.[229]BBC News pointed out that there is no "Lenin Square" inSloviansk, although there is an "October Revolution Square".[230] Some Russian journalists condemned the fabrication of the story.[231]
A video showing a group of people claiming to be members of theAzov Brigade setting a crucified body of a supposed separatist soldier on fire also spread on social media.[232] Representatives of the brigade themselves deny any connection to the video, arguing that the uniforms of the people shown in the video differ from those of Azov Brigade fighters, since the shoulder insignia is much larger than it should be, and the weapon appears to be pneumatic. They also point out that the person nailed to the cross does not scream while lifting the cross, that the persons are speaking broken Ukrainian and the video stops shortly after the cross is set on fire, so it is unknown whether the person died. It is noteworthy that the video presents the people in military uniform as fighters of the Azov Brigade. However, by 2014 Azov had been reorganized and expanded into a regiment within theNational Guard, making it unlikely that members of the unit would be unaware of the change. Another video of two people being hanged was received with skepticism, since the video footage shows one of the person's abdomen moving forward while the weight of the body is not concentrated on the neck, suggesting the actors wear special equipment that is used while climbing cliffs. They also draw attention to the fact that the persons involved in the "hanging" ensure that the bodies do not rotate and their backs do not appear during the video.[233][234]
A video showing an elderly woman holding theSoviet national flag to greet the Ukrainian military has been widely spread inRunet since March 2022. The grandmother with a red flag was turned into an iconic image by Russian propaganda. Allegedly, it represents the desire of "ordinary Ukrainians" to reunite with their "Russian brothers".[235]
Anna Ivanivna, the subject of the "grandmother with red flag" video, explained that she mistook the Ukrainian military for Russian invaders and she wanted to "placate" them with a Soviet flag so they would not destroy the village. She now regrets it and feels like a "traitor".[236] Her house near Kharkiv was destroyed by the Russian army, and she and her husband have been evacuated. She cursed the Russian army which she deemed was responsible for shelling her house. The Ukrainian military appealed to the public to not chastise Anna Ivanivna, who was a victim herself.[235][237]
On 16 January 2024, Russia carried out a missile strike on a multi-storey building inKharkiv, claiming it had killed a dozen "French mercenaries". Local authorities said that 17 civilians were injured and that there was no military target in the building.[238] Russian media even published a list of 13 French men ostensibly killed in the attack. French networkRadio France Internationale (RFI) contacted two people on the list, Alexis Drion and Béranger Minaud, volunteers of theInternational Legion of Ukraine who were both in France during this attack on Kharkiv, and made an interview with them, confirming they never died and that the story isRussian propaganda. RFI assumes this was tied to the French announcement of a delivery of 40 SCALP missiles to the Ukrainian Army.[239]
Amongst Russia's attempts to control the free press and present their own views are attacks onWikipedia, which has been on a government registry of prohibited websites for over 10 years.[253]
In May 2022, theWikimedia Foundation was fined 5 million rubles for articles about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia claimed to have uncovered 16.6 million messages spreading "fakes" about the invasion on platforms including Wikipedia.[253] The Wikimedia Foundation appealed the ruling in June, stating the "information at issue is fact-based and verified by volunteers who continuously edit and improve articles on the site; its removal would therefore constitute a violation of people's rights to free expression and access to knowledge."[254]
In November 2022, a Russian court fined the Wikimedia Foundation 2 million rubles for not deleting "false" information in seven articles about the "special military operation", including the Bucha massacre and the Mariupol theatre airstrike.[255]
In February 2023, a Russian court imposed a fine of 2 million rubles on the Wikimedia Foundation for failing to remove "misinformation" about the Russian military.[256][254] In April 2023, another fine of 800,000 rubles was imposed on the Wikimedia Foundation for not removing materials about Russian rock bandPsiheya [ru], with another fine of 2 million rubles being imposed in relation to other articles such as the Russian language version ofRussian occupation of Zaporizhzhia Oblast.[257]
On 8 October 2023, a video supposedly ofHamas thanking Ukraine for supplying them with weapons was shared by an X account linked to theWagner Group. It was viewed over 300,000 times and shared byAmerican far-right accounts. The next day, former Russian presidentDmitry Medvedev tweeted, "Well,Nato buddies, you've really got it, haven't you? The weapons handed to the Nazi regime in Ukraine are now being actively used againstIsrael."[258][259][260]
In April 2022, Canada'sCommunications Security Establishment said there was a coordinated effort by Russia to promote false reports about Ukraine harvesting organs from dead soldiers, women and children.[261]
In May 2023,RT aired a documentary titledTanks for Kidneys, which promotes false claims that Ukraine has been selling organs since 2014, including from children in orphanages and Ukrainian soldiers.[262]
In 2025,false news reports gained traction online and fuelledconspiracy theories that Russian airstrikes in Ukraine usually targetpedophile andchild trafficking schemes.[263][264][265]
In March 2024, fourTajikISIS–K gunmen launched anattack on a concert hall inKrasnogorsk, Russia, with rifles and incendiaries, killing 145.[266][267] Ukrainian officials described Russian claims that the perpetrators of the Crocus City Hall attack tried to escape to Ukraine as "very doubtful and primitive" disinformation, recalling that the border is heavily guarded by soldiers and drones, mined in many areas, and constantly shelled from both sides.[268] Latvia-based Russian news outletMeduza has reported that pro-government and state-fundedmedia in Russia have been instructed by the Russian government to highlight possible "traces" of Ukrainian involvement in the attack.[269]
On the evening of the attack, Russian television channelNTV broadcast a doctored video usingaudio deepfaking, purporting to showOleksiy Danilov, the Secretary of theNational Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, confirming Ukrainian involvement in the attack, supposedly saying, "It's fun in Moscow today, I think it's very fun. I would like to believe that we will arrange such fun for them more often."[270][271] The deepfake was created by patching together previous news streams of the Ukrainian1+1 channel.[270][272]
In late March 2024, more than 50% of Russians believed that Ukraine was responsible for the terrorist attack, while 27% saidIslamic State was responsible and 6% blamed the so-called "collective West", according to a survey conducted by OpenMinds. The Islamic State was blamed most often by young people aged 18–30 who opposed the war in Ukraine.[273] Russia'sInvestigative Committee investigation completed in 2025 indicated no Ukrainian involvement, contrary to the previous public statements from the authorities.[274]
On the second day of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, videos and picture went viral on social media, with claims that a Ukrainian pilot nicknamed the "Ghost of Kyiv" had shot down 6 Russian fighter jets in the first 30 hours of the war. There is no credible evidence that he existed.[2][275] A video of the alleged pilot was shared onFacebook and the official Twitter account of theUkrainian Ministry of Defence, was later found to be from the video gameDigital Combat Simulator World.[276][277] An altered photo was also shared by the former president of Ukraine,Petro Poroshenko.[278] On 30 April 2022,Ukrainian Air Force asked the "Ukrainian community not to neglect the basic rules of information hygiene" and to "check the sources of information, before spreading it",[279] stating that the Ghost of Kyiv "embodies the collective spirit of the highly qualified pilots of the Tactical Aviation Brigade who are successfully defending Kyiv and the region".[280]
The Ukrainian Air Force later admitted that the Ghost of Kyiv was a fabrication.[281][282][283][284] Despite this,The Times and several other outlets published stories without evidence[285] asserting that the pilot was real and had died.
On 24 February 2022, the Ukrainian newspaperUkrainska Pravda published a viral audio recording in which the crew of a Russian warship offered Ukrainian border guards on Serpent Island to surrender to the Russian forces. One of the border guards responded by saying, "Russian warship, go fuck yourself".[2]
Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy announced the death of the border guards. A few days later, Ukrainian officials reported that the border guards were alive and had been captured by Russian troops.[2][286]The New York Times stated that "The Ghost of Kyiv" story was likely to be false and that the claim that the Snake Island border guards had all been killed was false, and that both cases were either propaganda or campaigns to raise morale.[2]
In the summer of 2022, a number of Ukrainian officials spread misleading information about the impendingUkrainian counteroffensive in the south of the country in theKherson Oblast in order to regain control ofKherson.[287]Ukrainian special forces have said that the highly publicizedUkrainian counteroffensive in theKherson Oblast was a military disinformation campaign aimed at distracting Russian forces from the realoffensive that was being prepared in theKharkiv Oblast.Taras Berezovets, a spokesman for the Ukrainian special forces brigade, said: "[It] was a big special disinformation operation. ... [Russia] thought it would be in the south and moved their equipment. Then, instead of the south, the offensive happened where they least expected, and this caused them to panic and flee".[288][289]
Alexander Titov fromQueen's University Belfast notes that the rumours about new Russian mobilisation are "partly a misinformation campaign launched by Kyiv to sow dissent in Russia" and that the "spreading rumours of imminent mobilisation in Russian is clearly part of Ukraine's psychological warfare, but the more they do it without anything happening, the less credible it becomes".[290]
On 22 September 2022, the "conscript base" of the 2022Russian mobilisation from the hacker groupAnonymous began to spread in Ukrainian Telegram channels. As it was claimed, the distributed file allegedly contained the passport data of more than 305 thousand Russians subject to mobilisation "first of all". It was also noted that Anonymous hackers obtained the data by hacking the website of the Russian defence ministry, but the group itself didn't report this leak. The ministry didn't comment on the alleged leak, but reposted "War on Fakes", a Telegram channel. The report says that the published database "is compiled from several open databases and has nothing to do with the Ministry of Defense."Ruslan Leviev, the founder ofConflict Intelligence Team, and Andrei Zakharov, a correspondent of theBBC News Russian, are of the opinion that the "conscript base" is a fake.[291][292]
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In December 2022, Ukrainian Defense MinisterOleksii Reznikov and head of military intelligenceKyrylo Budanov claimed that a new wave of mobilisation would begin on 5 January 2023, but this didn't happen. Then in January of the same year, Ukrainian officials continued to claim that 500,000 people would be mobilized that same month.[290]
On 9 January 2023, information spread on social networks that theFederal Security Service sent all border services an order to restrict the departure of Russian citizens subject to conscription for military service.[293] On 11 January, this statement was published, among other things, by theMain Directorate of Intelligence of theMinistry of Defense of Ukraine. Press Secretary of the Russian PresidentDmitry Peskov called that as "information sabotage". The head of the human rights groupAgora,Pavel Chikov, called the "orders" a fake, because "the orders were executed inappropriately, although they are similar to the original ones".[294]Factcheck.kg noted that, according to the RussianGOST for official documents, the date must be indicated in a "verbal-digital way" and that when writing an order it is also necessary to refer to the law. Paragraph 12 contains an extra character, which is also unacceptable. Also the document is not certified by the seal or signature of the relevant officials or organizations and, thus, is a fake.[293]
On 5 September 2023, a document allegedly signed bySergei Shoigu on a new wave of Russian mobilization appeared in the Ukrainian media and Telegram channels (includingUNIAN). Regional and federal representatives of the Russian authorities called the "order" a fake. Russian independent mediaSOTA concluded that it was a fake and provided a number of arguments to support this opinion; for example, in Russian legislation there are not "representatives of military commissariats", but military commissars.[295][296] A few days later, on 11 September, theGeneral Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces published an unsubstantiated statement that Russia could soon launch a major mobilization campaign of 400,000 to 700,000 people.[297][290]
The media focused much less on how other countries' propaganda during Russia's invasion of Ukraine worked to promote certain narratives.[1]
Russosphere is a French-language social network that promotes pro-Russian propaganda in Africa. It was created in 2021, but fully launched in February 2022, prior to the invasion of Ukraine.[298] It amassed over 65,000 followers on social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, as well as Telegram andVK.[299] The network's posts typically accuse France of modern-day "colonialism", describe the Ukrainian Army as "Nazis" and "Satanists", and praise the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company.[298] In early 2023, the BBC andLogically reported that Russosphere was created byLuc Michel, a Belgian far-right activist.[298][300][299]
In March 2022, Visegrád 24 posted an unsourced tweet falsely claiming thatLeonardo DiCaprio had donated $10 million to Ukraine. The false story was picked up by news outlets around the world, such as India'sHindustan Times, the U.K.'sThe Independent and theDaily Mail, and American conservative websitesThe Daily Caller and theWashington Examiner, before being retracted.[301]
In December 2023,Microsoft revealed that messages recorded by US actors on the websiteCameo have been repurposed to spread misinformation about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy being a drug addict on social media and Russian state media.[302]Wired reported that images of Western celebrities edited to contain pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian quotes were spread on Facebook, with the operation being linked toDoppelganger, a Russian disinformation campaign.[303]
On 4 March 2022, Putin signed into law a bill introducingprison sentences of up to 15 years for those who publish "knowingly false information" about the Russian military and its operations, with the Russian government deciding what is the truth, leading to some media outlets in Russia to stop reporting on Ukraine or shutting their media outlet.[304][305][306] Although the1993 Russian Constitution has an article expressly prohibitingcensorship,[307] the Russian censorship apparatusRoskomnadzor ordered the country's media to only use information from Russian state sources or face fines and blocks, and accused a number of independent media outlets of spreading "unreliable socially significant untrue information" about the shelling of Ukrainian cities by the Russian army and civilian deaths.[308][309]
Roskomnadzor launched an investigation against theNovaya Gazeta,Echo of Moscow,inoSMI,MediaZona,New Times,TV Rain, and other independentRussian media outlets for publishing "inaccurate information about the shelling of Ukrainian cities and civilian casualties in Ukraine as a result of the actions of the Russian Army".[310] On 1 March 2022, the Russian government blocked access to TV Rain, as well as Echo of Moscow, in response to their coverage of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces. The channel closed, with its general director announcing they would be "temporarily halting its operations", on 3 March 2022; its frequencies were later reassigned to the Russian state propaganda outletSputnik Radio.[311][312]Novaya Gazeta ceased publications on 28 March 2022 and its publishing license was revoked on 5 September, but it was quickly revived in Latvia asNovaya Gazeta Europe.[313][314][315] The websites ofRadio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,The Moscow Times,Radio France Internationale,The New Times andBBC News Russian were blocked.[316][317]
As of December 2022, more than 4,000 people were prosecuted under "fake news" laws in connection with the war in Ukraine.[318] Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director atHuman Rights Watch, said that "These new laws are part of Russia's ruthless effort to suppress all dissent and make sure the [Russian] population does not have access to any information that contradicts the Kremlin's narrative about the invasion of Ukraine."[319]
Due toRussian fake news laws, Russian authorities blocked Facebook and Twitter, whileTikTok in Russia banned new uploads. However a study byTracking Exposed found out that TikTok had blocked all non-Russian content, but has continued to host old videos uploaded by Russia-based accounts and permitted Russian state media to continue posting, described as establishing a "splinternet" within a global social media platform.[320] TikTok's vague censorship has permitted pro-Kremlin news but blocked foreign accounts and critics of the war, as a result "Russians are left with a frozen TikTok, dominated by pro-war content".[321][322]
The BBC reported that coverage of the war was heavily censored on social media in China. Many stories and accounts supporting one or the other side were removed. A Taiwanese research group accused Chinese media of "regularly quoting disinformation and conspiracy theories from Russian sources".[323]
In March 2022,China Global Television Network (CGTN) paid for digital ads on Facebook targeting users with newscasts featuring pro-Kremlin talking points afterMeta Platforms banned Russian state media advertisements.[324][325] The same month, CGTN repeatedunsubstantiated Russian claims of biological weapons labs in Ukraine.[326]China Daily blamed the United States as the driving force for the Russian invasion.[327] A leaked internal directive fromThe Beijing News ordered its employees not to publish news reports that were "negative about Russia". An analysis found that nearly half ofWeibo's social media posts used Russia sources which were pro-Putin or described Ukraine in negative terms, while another third of posts were anti-West and blamed NATO, while very few posts described the war in neutral terms. Several history professors have penned an open letter that strongly opposed China's support for "Russia's war against Ukraine" but their post was quickly deleted by censors, while a celebrity who criticized Russia over the invasion had her account suspended.[328][329][330]
Facebook uncovered a Russian campaign using fake accounts, and attempts to hack the accounts of high-profile Ukrainians.[332] There are reports of Russian government staff searching for "organic content" posted by genuine users in support of the Kremlin, while making sure that these do not run afoul of platform guidelines, then amplifying these posts. Researchers have found that Russia'sInternet Research Agency has operated numeroustroll farms who spam critics of the Kremlin with pro-Putin and pro-war comments.[333]
In February 2022,Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat judged that the quality of Russian misinformation videos had weakened, but remained especially effective for the older generation of Russians.[9]
Some observers noted what they described as a "generational struggle" among Russians over perception of the war, with younger Russians often opposed to the war and older Russians more likely to accept the narrative presented by state-controlledmass media in Russia.[334] Kataryna Wolczuk, an associate fellow ofChatham House's Russia and Eurasia programme, said that "[Older] Russians are inclined to think in line with the official 'narrative' that Russia is defending Russian speakers in Ukraine, so it's about offering protection rather than aggression."[334] About two-thirds of Russians use television as their primary source of daily news.[335] According to the cyber threat intelligence company Miburo, about 85% of Russians get most of their news from Russian state-controlled media.[336]
Many Ukrainians say that their relatives and friends in Russia trust what the state-controlled media tells them and refuse to believe that there is a war in Ukraine and that the Russian army is shelling Ukrainian cities.[337][338][339]
Some Western commentators have claimed that the main reason many Russians have supported Putin and the "special military operation" in Ukraine has to do with the propaganda and disinformation.[340][341][342] At the end of March, a poll conducted in Russia by theLevada Center concluded the following: When asked why they think the military operation is taking place, respondents said it was to protect and defend civilians, ethnic Russians or Russian speakers in Ukraine (43%), to prevent an attack on Russia (25%), to get rid of nationalists and "denazify" Ukraine (21%), and to incorporate Ukraine and/or the Donbas region into Russia (3%)."[343]
In China,[344][345] India,[346][347] Indonesia,[348] Malaysia,[349] Africa,[350] the Arab world,[351] and Latin America,[352] some social media users trended towards showing sympathy for Russian narratives. A study performed byAirlangga University revealed that 71% of Indonesiannetizens supported the invasion.[353] This support was due to affection for Putin's strongman leadership, as well asanti-US andanti-Western political alignments.[354] Additionally, many Indonesians supported Russia due to positive reports ofRamzan Kadyrov and claims of the Azov Regiment covering their bullets with porklard to beused against MuslimChechen troops in the invasion.[355][356]
A series of four online polls by Alexei Navalny'sAnti-Corruption Foundation found that between 25 February and 3 March, the share of respondents in Moscow who considered Russia an "aggressor" increased from 29% to 53%, while the share of those who considered Russia a "peacemaker" fell by half from 25% to 12%.[357] On 5 April 2022,Alexei Navalny said the "monstrosity of lies" in the Russian state media "is unimaginable. And, unfortunately, so is its persuasiveness for those who have no access to alternative information."[358] He tweeted that "warmongers" among Russian state media personalities "should be treated as war criminals. From the editors-in-chief to the talk show hosts to the news editors, [they] should be sanctioned now and tried someday."[359]
On 3 April 2024, Russia'sDefense Ministry announced that "around 16,000 citizens" had signed military contracts in the last 10 days to fight as contract soldiers in the Russo-Ukrainian War, with most of them saying they were motivated to "avenge those killed" in theCrocus City Hall attack.[360]
The United States Department of State and theEuropean External Action Service of theEuropean Union (EU) published guides aiming to respond to Russian disinformation.[13] Twitter paused all ad campaigns in Ukraine and Russia in an attempt to curb misinformation spread by ads.[361] European Commission presidentUrsula von der Leyen announced an EU-wide ban of Russian state-sponsoredRT andSputnik news channels on 27 February, after Poland and Estonia had done so days before.[362]
Reddit, an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website, quarantinedsubreddits r/Russia, the national subreddit of Russia, and r/GenZedong, a self-described "Dengist" subreddit in March 2022, after both the subreddits were spreading Russian disinformation. In the case of r/Russia, the site's administrators removed one of its moderators for spreading disinformation. Sister sub of r/Russia, r/RussiaPolitics was also quarantined for similar reasons. When the subreddits are quarantined, they don't show up in searches, recommendations and user feeds, and anyone who tries to access the quarantined subreddits would be shown a warning regarding the content, which they must acknowledge in order to access it.[363][364]
In May 2022, a group calling themselvesNAFO was created with the object of posting irreverent comments about the war and memes promoting Ukraine or mocking the Russian war effort and strategy using a "cartoon dog" based on theShiba Inu. NAFO was seen byThe Washington Post as having a significant impact on Russian troll farms.[365] On 28 August 2022, the official Twitter account of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine tweeted its appreciation of NAFO, with an image of missiles being fired and a "Fella" dressed in a combat uniform, hands on face, in a posture of appreciation.[366]
In the information war over the invasion of Ukraine, some of the country's official accounts have pushed stories with questionable veracity, spreading anecdotes, gripping on-the-ground accounts and even some unverified information that was later proved false, in a rapid jumble of fact and myth. The claims by Ukraine do not compare to the falsehoods being spread by Russia, which laid the groundwork for a "false flag" operation in the lead-up to the invasion, which the Biden administration sought to derail.
In justifying this attack, Vladimir Putin has misrepresented and misappropriated Holocaust history by claiming falsely that democratic Ukraine needs to be 'denazified.' Equally groundless and egregious are his claims that Ukrainian authorities are committing 'genocide' as a justification for the invasion of Ukraine.
... the propagandist discourse accompanying the current hostilities is saturated with irresponsible statements and completely inaccurate comparisons with Nazi ideology and actions before and during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem condemns this trivialization and distortion of the historical facts of the Holocaust.
Russian mercenaries fighting in Ukraine, including the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group, have been linked to far-right extremism ... Much of the extremist content, posted on Telegram and the Russian social media platform VKontakte (VK), relates to a far-right unit within the Wagner Group called Rusich ... One post on the messaging app Telegram, dated 15 March, shows the flag of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), a white-supremacist paramilitary ... Another recent VK posting lists Rusich as part of a coalition of separatist groups and militias including the extreme far-right group, Russian National Unity.
Members of far-right groups played a much greater role on the Russian side of the conflict than on the Ukrainian side, especially at the beginning.
Separatist ideologues in the Donbas, such as they are, have therefore produced a strange melange since 2014. Of what Marlène Laruelle (2016) has called the 'three colours' of Russian nationalism designed for export—red (Soviet), white (Orthodox) and brown (fascist) ... there are arguably more real fascists on the rebel side than the Ukrainian side.
The Ukrainian Government maintains that the Russian Federation has from 27 February 2014 exercised effective control over the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol ... There was sufficient evidence that during the relevant period the respondent State [Russia] had exercised effective control over Crimea.
Russia's war against Ukraine began with the annexation of Crimea on 27 February 2014. On that day, Russian special forces without any uniform insignia appeared in Crimea, quickly taking control of strategic, military and political institutions.
If asked when the war began, many Ukrainians believe it was when the unmarked Russian 'little green men' occupied Crimea on February 27, 2014, or February 20, the date given on the official Russian campaign medal 'For the Return of Crimea'.
First, what we often call "the Ukraine War" didn't start in February 2022[...] the war between Ukraine and Russia began in 2014 with Vladimir Putin's taking of Crimea and his intervention— first through proxies and then with regular forces—in the Donbas.
Vladimir Putin justified the invasion of Ukraine with claims of the need to 'denazify' the country. Yesterday, Russia's security council pivoted from 'denazification' to 'desatanisation'
Dozhd, Ekho Moskvy and Znak have closed down after being blocked by the authorities
Dozhd (Rain) is temporarily halting its work
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