Is it true that British intelligence reported that Putin is going to return part of the occupied regions to Ukraine in exchange for giving up Crimea?

On March 4, a message circulated in the media and social networks citing British intelligence, which spoke of a possible territorial exchange between Russia and Ukraine: Russian troops would leave the occupied part of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, and Ukraine would not lay claim to Crimea. We decided to check if this information is true.

A screenshot of the daily British intelligence report appeared on the morning of March 4 in the Ukrainian Telegram channel “Trash Zaporozhye" An hour later the Telegram channel wrote about this “Insider UA"—without a screenshot, but with a link to the intelligence report. Both posts were deleted on the same day. We managed to write about it in a day Ukrainian, Azerbaijani And Israeli Media.

The message itself, which is attributed to British intelligence, consists of four points. They say Putin is trying to push Ukraine and its Western allies into negotiations. In particular, there is a proposal to exchange the occupied territories of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions for Crimea. Apparently, it is meant that Kyiv will renounce its claims to Crimea; this is not specifically stated in the text. At the same time, the report says, the Kremlin does not abandon the idea of ​​completely occupying the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Then it talks about the difficult economic situation in which Russia finds itself due to Western sanctions. Finally, the main conclusion is this: Putin’s main goal for 2023 is not to lose power and maintain control over the social and economic situation in Russia. “The proposal to give up part of the territories (Zaporozhye and Kherson region) in exchange for easing sanctions is being studied,” the published message says.

At first glance, the summary looks like the real one. The color scheme, design and font are indistinguishable from the normal daily messages that the UK Ministry of Defense publishes on Twitter. Here, for example, is fresh summary for March 6:

However, the text of the message that went viral on social networks immediately contains many inconsistencies, which the Ukrainian agency drew attention to UNIAN. First of all, this concerns the writing of names. The UK Ministry of Defense transliterates Ukrainian names: for example, Vugledar instead of Ugledar.

In the text of the screenshot that went viral on social networks and the media, Zaporozhye is written in two different ways: Zaporozhye and Zaporizhzhia. The first case is the transfer of Russian writing, the second - Ukrainian. In one case, the Kherson region is indicated as Kherson Oblast, in the other - as Kherson oblast (which, however, could be attributed to a typo). Hyphenations of words that, as a rule, are not used in English are also confusing. In any case, they could not be found in other British intelligence reports. Finally, the text contains the strange abbreviation RF, which stands for the Russian Federation. As a rule, it does not appear in English, but in other reports the British Ministry of Defense writes Russia.

Finally, a topic atypical for military intelligence catches the eye. Usually the reports talk about the situation at the front, the supply of military equipment, the tactics and strategy of the Russian and Ukrainian troops. The political terms of a possible peace agreement are not the responsibility of the Ministry of Defense.

But the main argument in favor of it being a fake is quite simple. UK Ministry of Defense Twitter intelligence report for March 4 completely different, it talks not about the Kremlin’s political proposals, but about the situation near the city of Bakhmut, where heavy fighting was going on at that moment.

Thus, the message attributed to British intelligence is a fake, and made with gross errors. The Telegram channels through which the fake was spread deleted their posts within a few hours, but the media that believed in it did not do this.

Cover photo: UNIAN

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

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2. Is it true that owners of free Twitter accounts were required to remove Ukrainian flags from their profiles?
3. Is it true that Elon Musk was glad that Bakhmut was surrounded by Russian troops?