Factory of the continuous cycle: what fakes about Ukraine appeared in 2023

Biden is an old man with dementia. Ukrainians are either the Nazis or the fraternal people suffering from decisions of their own government. Western media is hypocritical liability. Europeans secretly support the Kremlin and understand their goals, but are afraid to declare it out loud.

Russian propaganda also used all these narratives in the second year of full -scale invasion of Ukraine, applying already tested methods: distributed fake coverage of foreign satirical media, following the supporters of Trump Published mounted videos against the current president of the United States, Conducted invented quotes of European politicians. However, in 2023, the arsenal of disinformers was replenished with new techniques, thanks to which the fake factory was able to offer the audience both confirming the abstracts already expressed and fresh knowledge.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine lose hundreds of thousands killed and invite old people, gays and foreign homeless people to the front

During the year, Russian Telegram channels regularly appeared “shocking revelations” about the real losses of the Ukrainian army in the war against the Russian Federation. For example, in mid -May, social networks spread video, allegedly created by the Ukrainian Association of Football - the residents of the country, they invited to attend matches of memory of 300,000 compatriots who died at the front. At the end of August, pro -Russian media wrote about 400,000 killed, ""Walk up"In social networks, the Ukrainian mobile operator" Kyivstar ", and after just two weeks, the real, as stated, the scale of Ukrainian losses opened The French travel agency, which launched the action in memory of 500,000 killed soldiers and officers. Finally, in November, secret data supposedly opened The Ukrainian television channel “1 + 1”, where data on more than 1.1 million dead and missing people appeared on the running line on the news. All four messages turned out to be fakes - in the first three cases, the rollers from scratch were created by the misinformers themselves, and in a fragment of the television ether, the news on the running line was simply replaced. Official Kyiv did not disclose its losses during the year; Western media s link At the Pentagon officials Assess The number of people who died since February 2022 of the Ukrainian military in 70 thousand people.

Another way to convince the audience of Z-channels and simply pro-government resources is that there will be no living and healthy fighter in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is to publish numerous messages about the mobilization of all new categories of citizens that Kyiv allegedly conducted. For example, Telegram spread a video about how gamers were called into the Ukrainian army (under the slogan “you are no longer a child, games ended”) and gays (with the words “it doesn’t matter if you love women or men, the main thing is that you love Ukraine”). The first video was Mont From a computer mouse, shots from several video games and records from the combat zone posted on YouTube, the second is a cut from Polish television portage three years ago and advertising of the APU ground forces, shot back in 2016. Both first appeared in the pro-Russian Telegram channels.

The same thesis of pro -government media illustrated with the help of photographs of leaflets and brochures, supposedly spreading both in Ukraine and abroad. So, to the front, they say in social networks, called Kyiv pensioners, New York homeless And Washington students. The evidence was a photo taken in such a way that it was not possible to establish a place of shooting. Over the incomplete two years of a full -scale war, Facturers dismantled dozens, if not hundreds of such fakes.

Europeans draw graffiti ridicuating Zelensky

Back in November 2022, Tsargrad, the channel of Vladimir Solovyov and other media distributed the news that a group of anonymous artists, known as Typical Optical, Drawn On the sidewalk in the center of Warsaw 3D graphfi-crawling out of the asphalt of the President of Ukraine, eating money. True, for some reason, for some reason, not one of the thousands of citizens who regularly pass through this lively intersection, the existence of graffiti was denied by local media and municipal services, and professional artists said that it was impossible to create such an image quickly and imperceptibly. Over the following months, reports about the appearance of similar drawings came from different European cities: Paris, Brussels, Madrid, Berlin, London, Hague. The artists depicted the Ukrainian president in the form of a black hole, locusts or octopus, devouring money and military equipment, as well as in the form of acne and feces.

But in the works of Typical Optical there were several oddities. Firstly, thanks to the Google Street View panoramas, it became clear that at least a few graffiti were drawn not in those cities that were mentioned in signatures to the group posts on social networks. Secondly, some works were created literally at one intersection in Paris, but one of them was sent out for the placed in Brussels. Thirdly, when the artists painted in Zurich graffiti, which was allegedly placed in Berlin, they were remembered by the seller of Kashtanov standing nearby-according to him, the young people did nothing at all. In conjunction with other signs, we can conclude that certain young men in black jackets with hoods simply took pictures, squatting, in different cities of Europe, and then, with the help of a photo editor, they added graffiti to the photographs, pretending them for real existing ones.

By June 2023, the activity of Typical Optical came to naught, but the reports of graffiti in European cities, whose residents allegedly criticize and ridicule Zelensky, did not cease to appear. For example, in September spread Pictures of murals taken, as claimed, in Berlin and Paris - the politician eats parts of the bodies in military uniform with a patch in the form of a Ukrainian flag. As it turned out, the pictures with the first graffiti actually captured Warsaw, and on the second - the intersection next door to where two works of Polish artists were previously performed. Judging by the evidence, evidence of the existence of such murals is created in the same way - they take a photograph in one of the European cities, and then, using special programs, impose an image.

Zelenskaya - citizen of Israel and Russia, spending millions on jewelry

This year, the creators of fakes began to pay more attention to the first lady of Ukraine. At the end of 2022 appeared The information that Elena Zelenskaya was not confirmed during a visit to Paris spent € 40,000 in local boutiques. Similar allegations began to spread through social networks in October, when the Ukrainian president arrived in New York to participate in the UN General Assembly, his wife at that time bought $ 1 million in the Boutique of Cartier.

The Russian media and Telegram channels referred in their publications on the Nigerian website of The Nation, where it appeared as a guest text paid by the unknown customer. The material was based on a video with a girl who claimed to work in a jewelry store in New York and served Zelenskaya. However, as it turned out, the video Recorded A native of Cameroon living in St. Petersburg.

They convicted the first ladies of Ukraine and that she received citizenship of another country. In June, a photo of the Israeli passport appeared in social networks, which Zelenskaya allegedly received during a visit to this country. How Installed The factor, the creators of the fake downloaded a sample of the passport from the Internet (and an outdated sample), replaced the content of several graphs (of course, making errors in the words in Hebrew) and inserted a fragment of the portrait of Zelenskaya from its social networks. Three months later, a video appeared on the Internet with the Russian passport of the wife of the Ukrainian president - however, in the document allegedly issued in 2014 was Used A photo taken nine years later, and a lot of errors were made on the main page on the main page (from incorrect transliteration to the use of a male gender marker).

Glory to urine

The Autumn trip of the Zelensky in the United States was the reason for the appearance of several fakes at once. In particular, allegedly on the day of the arrival of the Ukrainian delegation in New York, a yellow-blue flag with the signature of Glory to Urine (“Glory to Urine”) was brought to New York. As evidence, a video allegedly shot by an eyewitness was used. “Not a fake. <...> Apparently they know something ”- signed The video in its Telegram channel, official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Maria Zakharova. Almost all the largest pro -government media outlets reported about embarrassment - from Rossiy newspaper to Moscow Komsomolets.

The video was widely spread not only through the Russian -speaking segment of the network, so American facts also paid attention to it. With the help of Google Street View, they determined where, supposedly, the record was made and went to place. It turned outthat the intersection does not look like in a video: advertising screens are placed on the facades in a different way, and McDonald’s in the building, on the contrary, the logo of which is not in the viral video. Apparently, the basis of the fake was one of the numerous (and made several years ago) videos on YouTube, which shows a walk on New York in the first person. At least earlier on the use of this particular method “verified” repeatedly Catch Passing Telegram channels, which thus faked the video not only from the United States, but also From Japan.

Some Telegram channels who have posted the video were given by the proven with an apology for the typo, which the company, the media facade, allegedly published on Instagram. But, firstly, such a story never existed, and secondly, a completely different organization controls a huge screen.

Disinformers (and, apparently, their audience) so liked the phrase Glory to urine that they began to spread similar fakes. In particular, graffiti with this inscription soon supposedly appeared in different cities of Europe. How Installed “Checked”, all three drawings were imposed in a digital way in the photograph taken in the same area of ​​Paris - you can bypass the location pictures in less than half an hour. It is noteworthy that they are located approximately in the same place where graffiti previously appeared, who exhibited Zelensky in the unsightly light.

Western stars urge the Ukrainian president to be treated from drug addiction

In July, millions of views at Telegram scored a video with storiz, allegedly laid out on the actor Elijah Wood. How Approved In the video, the Hollywood star called on Zelensky to go to Rehab and finally overcome the addiction to drugs. In the following weeks, users shared similar appeals from actors Dina Norris (Hank Schreider from the series "All Great"), John K. Mcginley (Perry Cox from the series "Clinic"), Malcolma McDauella (Alex from the "Clothing Orange") and Kate Flenner (Meredith Palmer from the series "Office"), boxer T -shirt Tyson, widows of Elvis Presley Priscillas and bassist of the System of A Download group Shavo Odadjyana. The calls for Zelensky began to start treatment on the air of Channel One, wrote RIA Novosti and Rossiyskaya Gazeta, dozens of pro -Kremlin bloggers reported.

Although skeptics might have thought that eight videos at once were created using a neural network, in fact, as “verified”, all the video is genuine - they were ordered using the Cameo service. It allows fans (and, as it turned out, the creators of the fakes), turn to their idols with a request for a relatively small fee to write down congratulations on the holiday, parting words before an important event or simply a personal greeting. Through Cameo, the organizers of the campaign against Zelensky, apparently, asked the stars to encourage a certain Vladimir (none of the victims of the scam calls the name of the Ukrainian president) to go for treatment. Then these videos were decorated so that they looked like a story series published by celebrities on Instagram. To order these appeals through Cameo were spent, according to our calculations, about $ 2000.

However, appearing For a long time, the propaganda narrative about drug addiction of the Ukrainian president throughout the year confirmed in less costly ways. So, in January, a photo of the monument to Zelensky in Milan spread in social networks: figures in the form of a nose and a path of white powder laid to it. However, explained The author of the installation, her work has nothing to do with the Ukrainian leader. In the spring, a similar fake spread - this time with Zelensky was connected by a moving nose set in one of the Parisian galleries, which drives white powder. In fact, this exhibit introduced The public in Bologna five years earlier, even before the election of a politician for the post of president of Ukraine. Finally, a few weeks later, the fake people returned to Milan again - right at Duomo, as they claimed, a stand appeared to raise money to the aid of Ukraine, and the bills were supposed to be lowered into a hole at the site of the nostril on the portrait of Zelensky. The video proving such an action turned out to be mounted.

Ukrainians are not only Nazis, but also non -Christ

Against the backdrop of an aggravated in 2022 conflict Around the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine (PCU) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC -MP), numerous evidence of how Ukrainians betrayed true Christian teaching were distributed on the Web. The main hero of such fakes was the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. For example, in March, the largest Russian media reported that after the first worship held on the territory of the monastery representatives of the PCU, the crosses over the refectory temple turned black. In fact, like testify Photos of different years, the color of the crosses has not changed for at least two decades.

There were also reports of the sale of values ​​from the laurel. For example, in June, the head of the foreign intelligence service of the Russian Federation Sergey Naryshkin said that the Ukrainian authorities, with the mediation of UNESCO, agreed with European colleagues on the transfer of the relics of the saints to their museums. No There is no evidence of this statement, officials in Ukraine and UNESCO denied Naryshkin’s words. Soon, the Telegram channels also distributed the announcement of the Paris auction, at which the Orthodox shrines from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra will allegedly be sold out. The only proof was the photo of the poster advertising auction - he It turned out A fake inserted using a photo editor on a stock image.

Disinformers and plots were distributed, probably designed to provoke the indignation of true believers. So, in April, the media and Telegram diverged a video about how the supporters of PCU set fire to the Temple of the UOC in the Nikolaev region - in fact, a video was removed Ten years ago near Astrakhan. Soon on the proxy resources became a viral Fake The screenshot of the publication on the Onlyfans service, in which two Ukrainian webcam-models allegedly announced the collection of money for the needs of the PCU. After Halloween, Telegram channels replicated the video about how this holiday was celebrated in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and sang about Satan during the celebration, although in reality the video was Recorded A month earlier, and the creators of Fake replaced the sound path. Finally, in November, pro -Russian bloggers began to talk about the Church of the Holy allegedly registered in Ukraine PSA cartridge, Using As evidence, two comic videos. 

Europeans are against the transfer of military equipment to Kyiv - and suffer from the decisions of their governments

When at the turn of 2022 and 2023 the transfer of German Leopard tanks to Ukraine was actively discussed, several evidence appeared in the pro-Russian Telegram channels that ordinary residents of Germany were opposed to this decision. Calls not to send the cars to the Armed Forces of Ukraine allegedly placed, in particular, on screen at Stuttgart airport and on a plate With a request “not to feed the leopards with empty conversations of Zelensky” at the entrance to the Berlin Zoo. The pictures cited as evidence were mounted: in the first case, based on the old photograph, in the second - the post of one of the visitors to the zoo on Instagram.

In the summer the largest pro -government media told On the video allegedly shot in Germany, according to the plot of which a group of people in the form comes to the house to a simple German family and takes out all the property (including the Plush Leopard), and the detachment leader hangs a portrait of the Ukrainian president on the wall and says: “Khale, Zelensky!” “Your house in NATO? Measure with NATO in your house. More than € 22 billion from the German budget has already been given to Ukraine since the beginning of 2022 [year], ”the inscription at the end of the plot reads, as some channels shot by the Right -playing Party“ Alternative for Germany ”claimed. However, as the journalist of Radio Liberty found out, Mark Krutov, at least several roles in the video were performed by Russian actors, and “verified” found on Instagram one of them that the video was created by order of RT.

Another type of weapons, Causing Of great interest on the part of not only wire -packed speakers, but also Russian officials, are shells with a depleted uranium, which, for example, UK, and which, contrary to the statements of the Kremlin with nuclear weapons, put at the disposal of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Binding Only the name. In mid -May, the Secretary of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev said that the Russian missile entering the warehouse with such ammunition near Khmelnitsky led to the fact that the radioactive cloud headed towards Western Europe. In the Z-channels, a few days before, screenshots of services were published that recorded an increase in the level of radiation in the west of Ukraine and in Poland. In both cases, the data was correct, but torn from context. On a weekly horizon, the values ​​were indeed increased, but in fact, the norms did not go beyond the boundaries - approximately the same radiation background was in those days in Moscow.

Ukraine sells Hamas weapons and objects to the help of Israel

October 7, on the day of the attack of the Hamas militants on Israel, the orientalist and until recently, the regular guest of the air of Vladimir Solovyov Evgeny Satanovsky declaredthat Hamas used the weapons that Ukraine sold to him during the attack on the border kibbuts. Two days later with a similar statement He performed The deputy head of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, and the next day, a viral video, allegedly released by BBC, became the Telegram channels. With reference to the Bellingcat investigation group, it was stated that Kyiv could not effectively conduct a summer counterattack, because at least part of the weapons received from the Western weapons was transferred.

Fake in this video issues Several signs at once: not a BBC branded font was used, errors (for example, the turnover of the Ukrainian Prime Minister of Defense), and the militants of the Palestinian group are called terrorists, which journalists of the British broadcasting corporation fundamentally Do not do it, explaining this by observing the principle of impartiality. Finally, representatives of BBC and Bellingcat said that they did not release such materials. Other videos in support of the same Kremlin narrative as Installed “Verified”, also either falsified, or cannot be considered any convincing evidence.

It is noteworthy that publications on the resale of Western weapons by the Ukrainian authorities appeared this year before the attack of Hamas on Israel. For example, in early July, against the backdrop of mass protests in Paris, a screenshot from the site of an unnamed English -speaking newspaper spread, which claimed that French policemen were shot from American rifles transferred from Ukraine. There is no other evidence of this, but in the screenshot was used Photo of 2012 from Wikipedia. Earlier in the summer, the media and Telegram channels claimed that the Ukrainians handed over grenade launchers to Mexican drug carters. The error arose because of Incorrect translation The words of the TV presenter, a fragment of the broadcast with the participation of which was used as confirmation.

Soon after US President Joe Biden promised Israel to provide the necessary assistance to counteract the militants who attacked the country, a billboard allegedly appeared on the streets of New York with the signature “Help Jews = Burning Money. Support Ukraine! ” According to the proxors and Telegram channels, its installation was ordered by either Ukrainians living in the United States, or the ally of Zelensky. The video used as confirmation was actually edited -As in similar fakes, the basis was a fragment of a walk on YouTube Video with a walk along New York, and a poster was drawn to a stand that got into the frame.

A month later, the opposite news came from the American metropolis - this time at a huge media facade at Manhattan, they allegedly showed a video in which, instead of Ukraine, Israel was called on. The video has become viral far beyond the Russian -language segment of the Internet. But the fact of a fact from different countries is independent of each other Installed: In fact, at that moment on the screen showed an advertisement for the cartoon, and for the first time an edited record appeared in a wire Russian-language Telegram channel.

Hamas attack on Israel: “New Bucha"

However, not all fakes regarding the new war in the Middle East and spread on the Russian -speaking Internet were directly related to Ukraine. Many media and Telegram channels published inaccurate information that previously appeared in foreign social networks and (noticeably less often) media, in accordance with the one who support in the resumed Arab-Israeli conflict. Particularly popular on pro -Kremlin resources were plots that, through parallels with a war in Ukraine, help to prove the narratives of Russian propaganda. 

One of them is the storage of reports of the Western media, more on this in May 2022 He said, for example, spokesman for the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov. In October 2023, Russian pro-government Telegram channels at least twice gave examples of how foreign television channels release directed stories from the war zone in the Middle East. True, in the case of a Clarissa Ward from CNN. it turned outthat this is a repaired entry prepared by a trampist blogger, and in the case of Christina’s report, Chilyak from the Romanian channel Digi24-simply cut A video on which, as a result of installation, there is no signal of air anxiety and the sound of an explosion.

Russian officials and pro -government speakers used arguments about the production primarily in the comments on mass murders in the Ukrainian Bucha, to which the Russian army, according to them, had nothing to do. After the Kibutsa located near the Gas’s militants freed the photos near the Gaza sector and the photographs of the massacre arranged there were scattered, many Russian-speaking Telegram channels held a direct analogy: the media declared “40 deciduous babies”, then the representative of the ISAL in the commentary to the Anadolu agency says that he could not confirm this, and in mid-October, socialities Turning reports about the "Israeli buch". It is difficult to call these accusations fair. In the plots of the filming group of the Israeli television channel I24, which was the first to visit Kfar-Aza and whose reports later referred around the world, It is said Separately about the decapitated civilians and about 40 saved babies. These two statements subsequently (not without the help, for example, British tabloids) glued, and the formula “40 decapitated babies” began to be used (with different subtext) sympathizers of both sides of the conflict. How many Israeli children were actually killed in this way, is not reliable, however, the detection of several corpses without goals was confirmed by independent forensic experts.

And even the direct evidence that the Israeli officials published, in the proxy Telegram channels were considered fakes. This happened, for example, with a picture of the body burned by the militants of a small child, who was placed in the X account of the Prime Minister of Israel. Many resources argued that in fact this is the result of processing using neural networks of a picture with a puppy in a veterinary clinic. “Such a number of fakes from the Israeli authorities and Israeli media speaks of a serious lack of original materials, since you have to engage in similar factories.” He wrote Boris Rozhin. In fact, the situation was strictly reverse. Photo with a puppy Created User X, who commented on him like this: “It took me five seconds to do it. It is already easy to create a convincing fake photo. It is more difficult to fake the video, but they will never show a video with proof. ”

Photo on the cover: collage "Checked"