Propagandists have altered news stories from Ukrainian regional media, adding false mentions of the military.
Russian propaganda continues its efforts to discredit the Ukrainian military, aiming to turn Ukrainian citizens against the Armed Forces and promote the false narrative that the military commits crimes against civilians. To achieve this, propagandists use graphic editing and other methods to fabricate news from the criminal chronicles of Ukrainian regional media. These actions are intended to portray the Ukrainian military as a societal threat.
For example, Russian media distributed a fake screenshot of a news story about a murder in Lozova, Kharkiv region. According to the propagandists, the suspect allegedly “had legal troubles” and served with the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region.
However, the screenshot is fake. The Dumka news site did report on the Lozova incident but did not mention any connection between the suspect and the Armed Forces. Similarly, the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office made no such claim.
In another fabricated case, Russian bots on X (formerly Twitter) shared a fake screenshot about a murder in the Sumy region. Propagandists falsely claimed that the suspect was a soldier tortured for refusing to “pay money for the brigade” and had gone AWOL.
In reality, the soldier had no involvement in the actual incident in the Sumy region on January 15, 2025. Neither the press service of the National Police in the Sumy region nor the Dankor Online news site mentioned any military connection to the suspect.
Russian propaganda also targets obituaries of Ukrainian military personnel. One such fake involved a message from the Lviv region’s Vholos website, claiming a serviceman died of a drug overdose while on vacation.
This claim is false. Roman Hrekov did pass away on January 12, 2025, during his vacation, but the original Vholos article did not specify the cause of death. The details were fabricated by propagandists. Similarly, the Medenychi Village Council’s Facebook post about Hrekov makes no mention of drug use.
Notably, such incidents are common in Russia. According to the Russian news outlet Verstka, by September 2024, Russian soldiers had killed 242 people and seriously injured at least 227 in Russia after returning from the war.
Previously, Russian propaganda spread false claims about a speech by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov being displayed on Times Square screens.
Andriy Olenin
