Disinformation (a lie or exaggeration meant to sway opinion) has been spread by the Russian state, state-controlled media, propagandists, and
Russian web brigades using
fake profiles on social media. The aim is to justify Russia's war against Ukraine, and undermine those who oppose it. Russia seeks to sow disunity among Western countries who back Ukraine; to undermine their public's support for Ukraine; to convince them that
sanctions aren't working; and to cover-up or create
plausible deniability for Russian war crimes. Russia tailors its propaganda to its target audience, appealing to
far-right,
far-left, and
anti-Western sentiments. Russian propaganda has attacked Ukrainian
nationhood and
national identity, portraying
Ukrainians as "
Little Russians" or "part of an
all-Russian nation". This has been a theme in
Russian imperialist and nationalist rhetoric since the seventeenth century. Russian president
Vladimir Putin has long questioned the Ukrainian people's identity and the country's legitimacy. 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". Since then, Russia's official and media narrative is that Ukraine has always been Russian. In June 2025, Putin declared that "all of Ukraine is ours" because he considers Russians and Ukrainians to be "one people". 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 a
neo-imperialist account that exalts Russia's centuries-long repressive rule over Ukraine, while simultaneously presenting Russia as a victim of 'US imperialism'". He wrote that "Ukraine is NOT a country, but artificially collected territories" and that
Ukrainian "is NOT a language" but a "mongrel dialect" of Russian. He has said that Ukraine should not exist in any form and that Russia will continue to wage war against any independent Ukrainian state. Such denial of nationhood is said to be part of a campaign of
incitement to genocide by Russian authorities.
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. After the
2014 Ukrainian Revolution, Russian rhetoric portrayed Ukrainian governments as illegitimate, calling them the "Kyiv regime" or "junta". Putin said they were "led by a band of drug addicts and neo-Nazis", and claimed Ukraine is "under external control" by the West or the United States. The official governmental website of Ukraine says that Ukrainians consider themselves an independent nation. A poll conducted in April 2022 by "
Rating" found that the vast majority (91%) of Ukrainians (excluding the
Russian-occupied territories) do not support the thesis that "Russians and Ukrainians are one people".
Allegations of Nazism Putin falsely claimed that the Ukrainian government were
neo-Nazis and announced that one of his goals was the "de-Nazification of Ukraine". Putin's claims were repeated by Russian foreign minister
Sergey Lavrov in a speech to the
UN Human Rights Council; many diplomats walked out in protest. These claims were repeated in Russian media to justify the war. In April 2022, Russian state-owned news agency
RIA 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". By May, references to de-Nazifying Ukraine in Russian media began to wane, reportedly because it had not gained traction with the Russian public. These allegations of
Nazism are widely rejected as untrue and part of a Russian disinformation campaign to justify the invasion, with many pointing out that Ukrainian president
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and had relatives who were victims of
the Holocaust. 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: 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". The
Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum denounced Putin's claims, saying "once again, innocent people are being killed purely because of insane pseudo-imperial megalomania". The
US Holocaust Memorial Museum and
Yad Vashem condemned Putin's abuse of Holocaust history.
Ukrainian Jews likewise rejected claims of Ukraine being a neo-Nazi state. 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" against
Nazi Germany, even though Russia supports far-right groups across Europe. In the words of Miriam Berger for
The Washington Post, "the rhetoric of the 'fight against
fascism' resonates deeply in Russia, which suffered huge losses in the fight against Nazi Germany". Some
Soviet imagery was used as part of this propaganda drive, and Ukrainian flags were replaced with
Victory Banners in some occupied towns. Experts on disinformation say that Russia's portrayal of Ukrainians as Nazis helps them justify
Russian war crimes; Historian
Timothy Snyder said the Russian regime calls Ukrainians "
Nazis" to justify
genocidal acts against them. He said pro-war Russians use "Nazi" to mean "a Ukrainian who refuses to be Russian". Russian neo-fascist
Aleksandr Dugin proposed to simply "identify Ukrainian Nazism with
Russophobia". 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. Article 16 of the
Constitution 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. 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". Ukraine has publicly condemned "all forms of
Nazism,
neo-Nazism,
racism,
racial discrimination,
xenophobia, and related intolerance." . Ukrainian officials respond that Russia's own actions in Ukraine are like those of Nazi Germany, Many Russian units who took part in the invasion are linked to neo-Nazism themselves, including the
Rusich Group and Kremlin-sponsored
Wagner Group. Other openly neo-Nazi groups have been involved in recruiting, training and fighting on the Russian side, such as the
Russian Imperial Legion,
AAST and
Atomwaffen Division Russland.
Russian far-right groups also played a major role among the
Russian proxy forces in Donbas. Like many countries, Ukraine
has a far-right fringe, such as
Right Sector and
Svoboda. 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. In the
2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, a coalition of far-right parties including Right Sector received only 2% of votes and did not win any seats. Ukraine's
Azov 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. By the time of the invasion, the brigade had been largely de-politicized. A 2022
Counter Extremism Project report concluded that the Azov Brigade can no longer be defined as neo-Nazi.
Donbas genocide allegations in Moscow on 11 June 2014 , a state-sponsored event in Kursk in July 2023 In his announcement of the invasion, Putin baselessly claimed that Ukraine was carrying out
genocide in the mainly Russian-speaking
Donbas region. He said the purpose of Russia's "military operation" was to "protect the people" of the Russian-controlled breakaway
republics of Donetsk and
Luhansk. Putin claimed they had been facing "genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime" for eight years. The
European Commission called the allegations "Russian disinformation". Over 300 scholars on genocide issued a statement rejecting Russia's abuse of the term "genocide" to "justify its own violence". Ukraine brought
a case before the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) to challenge Russia's claim. The ICJ said it had not seen any evidence of genocide by Ukraine. Altogether,
about 14,300 people were killed in the
Donbas War, both soldiers and civilians. According to the
Office 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. The vast majority of civilian deaths were in the first year, 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-Kremlin
Telegram channels falsely accused Ukrainian troops of attacking civilian targets in
Mariupol and bombing Ukrainian cities. According to Russian website
Bumaga, an anonymous former employee of
Yevgeny Prigozhin's media company "Patriot" said that most of their reports about "victims of Ukrainian Armed Forces" in Donbas were staged. An excerpt from a speech given by former Ukrainian president
Petro 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 by
pro-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.
Allegations of NATO provocation and aggression Russian propaganda often claims that
NATO and its "
eastward expansion" provoked the invasion and that Russia had to invade Ukraine in self-defense. In his two speeches just before the invasion, Putin said that
Ukraine 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. Russian state media falsely claimed that thousands of NATO soldiers had been killed in the invasion. Although it seeks to join, Ukraine is not a member of NATO; a
collective security alliance of 32 member states, similar to the Russian-led
CSTO. In 1999, Russia signed the
Charter for European Security, affirming the right of each state to choose its security arrangements and join alliances if they wish. Such a promise was never included in any treaty, and the
Soviet 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". The last time a country bordering Russia had joined NATO prior to the invasion was in 2004. Putin has not always opposed NATO. According to
Michael McFaul and Robert Person, this suggests Putin did not truly believe it to be a military threat. In 2002, Putin said Ukraine's relationship with NATO was not Russia's concern. It was not until his
2007 Munich speech that Putin openly opposed NATO enlargement. Nevertheless, Russia deepened
co-operation with NATO in 2010, In December 2014, Ukraine's parliament voted to end this neutral status in response to Russia's aggression, 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. When Russia invaded in 2022, Ukraine was a long way from membership. Russia's invasion led
Finland to join NATO, doubling the length of Russia's border with NATO. Putin said that Finland's membership was not a threat, unlike Ukraine's, but warned against any military buildup in Finland. Peter Dickinson of the
Atlantic 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". Tom Casier writes that Russia's annexation of southeastern Ukraine reveals that the real motive for the invasion is to create a "
Greater Russia". Shortly before
his death in a plane crash, Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin accused the Russian military leadership of lying about NATO aggression to justify the invasion. Prigozhin was a close ally of Putin and his Wagner Group played an important role in the invasion. An article published by the
Institute 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".
Proxy war claims The Russian government accused NATO of waging a "
proxy war" against Russia, because its members have sent military aid to Ukraine after the invasion. Russian state media falsely claimed that some Ukrainian military units fighting the invasion were under NATO command. NATO says it is not at war with Russia, but supports Ukraine's "right to self-defense, as enshrined in the
UN Charter". 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. NATO refused to enforce a
no-fly zone over Ukraine, The
Russian president has claimed that during the
peace negotiations in Istanbul,
British prime minister Boris 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, and Volodymyr 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 in
Kyiv, Boris Johnson did not at any time pressure the Ukrainian delegation to change its position. Russia has falsely asserted several times that Ukraine is not a
sovereign country, but its government is controlled by foreign powers whose companies, banks and investment funds like
BlackRock or
Vanguard control a large portion of Ukrainian soil and forbid to bury Ukrainian corpses below it. However, under
Ukrainian law, foreign
market agents like corporations and individuals are not allowed to own Ukrainian land.
Alleged assassination and sabotage attempts 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's
metadata showed that it had been recorded on 12 June 2019.
France 24 described the incident as a
false flag attempt with corpses likely coming from a morgue to set up the scene.
Ukrainian biological and radiological weapons Biological weapons labs In March 2022, Russia alleged that Ukraine was developing biological weapons in a network of labs linked to the US. The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China and Chinese state media amplified Russian claims. BBC Reality Check found no evidence supporting the claims. The
United Nations and the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists also refuted this. Russian biologists in and outside of Russia have debunked the claims, calling the allegations "transparently false". According to researcher Adam Rawnsley, the Kremlin has a history of discrediting ordinary biology labs in former Soviet republics, and previously spread conspiracy theories about
Georgia and
Kazakhstan similar to those deployed against Ukraine.
Birds as bio-weapons Prior to March 2022, the
Russian Ministry of Defence made unsubstantiated accusations that the United States was
manufacturing 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 General
Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Ministry of Russian state-controlled media. He mentioned specific details, including a strain of influenza with 50% mortality, and
Newcastle 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. 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.
Ukrainian plans to use a dirty bomb In March 2022, Russian state-controlled news agencies claimed, without evidence, that Ukraine was developing a
plutonium-based
dirty bomb nuclear weapon at the
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. In a series of calls to foreign defence officials made in October 2022, Russian Minister of Defence
Sergei Shoigu similarly claimed that Ukraine was preparing a "provocation" involving the use of a dirty bomb. The Institute for the Study of War suggested a desire to slow or suspend
foreign aid to Ukraine as a possible motive for the allegations.
Denial of Russian war crimes 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. Russian officials denied the war crimes perpetrated by Russian forces. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov called the
Bucha 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. In March 2022, Facebook removed official Russian posts claiming that the
Mariupol hospital airstrike was a hoax, for breaking their rules against denying violent events.
FakeReporter, an Israeli watchdog group, found that the posts were still present on several Russian ministry social media accounts. 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. This was contradicted by satellite images showing that the bodies were there as early as 19 March; the position of the corpses in the satellite images matches the smartphone photos taken in early April. The Russian 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. Russia also released a video that, according to the Kremlin, showed a corpse supposedly moving, although this was quickly deemed false after investigations by
fact-checking websites determined that it was a corpse reflected in the rearview mirror of a car. Another attempt to depict the massacre as fake aired on the Russian state television channel
Russia-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 in
Saint Petersburg. Workers for the television show confirmed that the video was from a Russian television show. 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 possibly
booby-trapped. 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. Russian officials also blamed Ukrainian forces for the
Mariupol theatre airstrike, though independent sources confirmed that Russia was responsible. after
Russian missile strike on 14 January 2023.
Dmitry Peskov claimed that the residential building probably collapsed due to a Ukrainian air defense counterattack. In November 2022, Putin's spokesman
Dmitry Peskov denied that the Russian military was
attacking 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 the
Dnipro residential building airstrike, which killed over 40 civilians. But Peskov said that Russian forces never attack residential buildings and the residential building probably collapsed because of a Ukrainian air defence counterattack. In December 2022,
Russian opposition politician
Ilya 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 of
Bucha, near Kyiv. In February 2023, Russian journalist
Maria Ponomarenko was sentenced to six years in prison for publishing information about the Mariupol theatre airstrike.
Other Russian claims Start of the war Many people outside Ukraine, including politicians and commentators, regard 24 February 2022 as the start of Russia's war with Ukraine. On that day, a column of Russian armored vehicles departed
Sevastopol’s Cossack Bay, and the same date is engraved on the Russian
Crimea campaign medal. Shortly before the beginning of the
full-scale invasion in 2022, the
Russian government denied that such an invasion would take place. On 7 September 2022, at the
Eastern 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". Conversely,
Russia's annexation of Crimea in February 2014 is regarded as the start of the
Russo-Ukrainian War. 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 the
Minsk agreements in February 2015.
Ukrainian Satanism and black magic 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". Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council and also a former Russian president and prime minister, described the invasion as a sacred war against Satan.
Vladimir Solovyov, a presenter on state-owned channel
Russia-1, also called the invasion a "holy war" against "Satanists" and said Russia is up against fifty countries "united by Satanism". 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 "
totalitarian hypersect". In an article for the Russian state-owned
Argumenty i Fakty newspaper, he identified the
Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Jewish movement as one of the "hundreds of
neo-pagan cults" operating in Ukraine. Russia's chief
rabbi,
Berel Lazar, wrote a letter to Russian authorities, asking them to condemn Pavlov's comments, which he described as "a new variety of old
blood libels". About 70% of Ukrainians are religious, and half of those attend religious services.
False flag fakes 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, The
Olenivka 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.
Flight and surrender of Ukrainian President 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. Russian state-owned television channel Russia-1 spread false claims that Zelenskyy fled Ukraine following the 10 October 2022 missile strikes.
Use of artificial intelligence for propaganda purposes Fake videos made with
artificial intelligence were created as part of a
propaganda war against Ukraine and shared in
social media. These included depictions of children in the
Ukrainian Armed Forces, fake ads targeting children encouraging them to denounce critics of the
Ukrainian government, or fictitious statements by
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy using
deepfake technology about the country's surrender, among others.
Anti-refugee sentiments 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.
Prohibition of Russian language and Orthodox Christianity The law of Ukraine "
On Protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the State language" approved on 25 April 2019, gives priority to the Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in
public administration, media, education, science, culture, advertising,
services. However, it does not regulate private communication nor ban the use of
Russian language in the country, contrary to what some online claims created by Russia have asserted. Russian remains a widely used language in Ukraine in pop culture and in informal and
business communication. On 20 August 2024, the
Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine banned the
Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine by adopting the
Law of Ukraine "On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Activities of Religious Organizations". Ukrainian religious organizations affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church will be banned 9 months from the moment the issues the order, if this religious organization does not sever relations with the Russian Orthodox Church in accordance with
Orthodox canon law. This prohibition did not extend to
Eastern Orthodoxy in general, nor did encourage to set fire to Orthodox churches, contrary to what some
online claims asserted.
News masquerading as Western coverage A number of fabricated
CNN headlines and stories went viral on social media, including of a faked image of CNN reporting that
Steven Seagal had been seen alongside the Russian military, a CNN
lower third that was digitally altered to include a claim that Putin had issued a statement warning India not to interfere in the conflict, 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", 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 YouTuber
Vaush, who lives in the US and was not in Kharkiv at the time. Other Western stations, including the
BBC,
DW and
Euronews, have seen similar fakes distributed.
Crucified bodies Hoaxes about crucified civilians and soldiers by the
Ukrainian military were deliberately spread by the Kremlin. One story claimed that Ukrainian soldiers
crucified a three-year-old boy at "Lenin Square" in
Sloviansk. Investigative journalists from the Russian news outlets
Novaya Gazeta and
TV 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.
BBC News pointed out that there is no "Lenin Square" in Sloviansk, although there is an "October Revolution Square". Some Russian journalists condemned the fabrication of the story. A video showing a group of people claiming to be members of the Azov Brigade setting a crucified body of a supposed separatist soldier on fire also spread on social media. 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 the
National 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.
"Grandmother with red flag" , Crimea, 9 May 2022 A video showing an elderly woman holding the
Soviet national flag to greet the Ukrainian military has been widely spread in
Runet 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". 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.
13 "French mercenaries" killed in Kharkiv On 16 January 2024, Russia carried out a missile strike on a multi-storey building in
Kharkiv, 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. Russian media even published a list of 13 French men ostensibly killed in the attack. French network
Radio France Internationale (RFI) contacted two people on the list, Alexis Drion and Béranger Minaud, volunteers of the
International 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 is
Russian propaganda. RFI assumes this was tied to the French announcement of a delivery of 40 SCALP missiles to the Ukrainian Army.
Russian claims about Ukrainian civilians • "Russian soldiers will be welcomed as heroes by civilians for liberating them in Ukraine" • Ukrainians confront Russian tanks with bare hands • Ukrainians jubilant as Ukraine retakes Kherson • "No strikes are being made on civilian infrastructure" - In February 2022 Russian foreign minister
Sergei Lavrov "Russian armed forces do not attack civilian objects on the territory of Ukraine" - June 2023 Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov • Russia's full-scale aggression has caused $137.8 billion damage to Ukraine's infrastructure in a year. • "Civilians are not being targeted" • The United Nations estimated that as of 24 July, the war had killed or injured more than 12,000 civilians • At least 10,000 killed civilians confirmed by the UN since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion - November 2023 • The Kremlin claimed "they do not intend to impose anything by force." • Civilians who refuse Russian passports denied medical facilities • Civilians without passports threatened with deportation • "Ukrainian citizens can decide on their future" - President Putin 12 June 2021
Claims of Wikipedia publishing false information Amongst Russia's attempts to control the free press and present their own views are attacks on
Wikipedia, which has been on a government registry of prohibited websites for over 10 years. 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." 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. 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.
Support for Hamas On 8 October 2023, a video supposedly of
Hamas thanking Ukraine for supplying them with weapons was shared by an X account linked to the Wagner Group. It was viewed over 300,000 times and shared by
American far-right accounts. The next day, former Russian president Dmitry 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 against
Israel." On 10 October, another video was released falsely claiming to be made by the
BBC and purported to quote the
investigative journalism website
Bellingcat to confirm the sale of weapons between Ukraine and Hamas. Both the BBC and Bellingcat confirmed that the video was a fake and the claim was false.
Claims of organ harvesting and pedophilia In April 2022, Canada's
Communications Security Establishment said there was a coordinated effort by Russia to promote false reports about Ukraine harvesting organs from dead soldiers, women and children. In May 2023,
RT aired a documentary titled
Tanks for Kidneys, which promotes false claims that Ukraine has been selling organs since 2014, including from children in orphanages and Ukrainian soldiers. In 2025,
false news reports gained traction online and fuelled
conspiracy theories that Russian airstrikes in Ukraine usually target
pedophile and
child trafficking schemes.
Involvement in the Crocus City Hall attack In March 2024, four
Tajik ISIS–K gunmen launched an
attack on a concert hall in
Krasnogorsk, Russia, with rifles and incendiaries, killing 145. 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. Latvia-based Russian news outlet
Meduza has reported that pro-government and state-funded
media in Russia have been instructed by the Russian government to highlight possible "traces" of Ukrainian involvement in the attack. On the evening of the attack, Russian television channel
NTV broadcast a doctored video using
audio deepfaking, purporting to show
Oleksiy Danilov, the Secretary of the
National 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." The deepfake was created by patching together previous news streams of the Ukrainian
1+1 channel. In late March 2024, more than 50% of Russians believed that Ukraine was responsible for the terrorist attack, while 27% said
Islamic 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. Russia's
Investigative Committee investigation completed in 2025 indicated no Ukrainian involvement, contrary to the previous public statements from the authorities.
Attack on Putin's residence In December 2025, Putin made a claim to US president Donald Trump that Ukraine had attacked Putin's personal residence, no evidence was found for the alleged attack, and the
CIA assessed Ukraine were not targeting a residence used by Putin.
Olympics disinformation campaign In February 2026,
BBC Verify said that a major Russian disinformation operation was using the
2026 Winter Olympics to paint Ukrainian fans and athletes in a bad light using fake news stories, with the goal of undermining Western support for Ukraine. ==Ukrainian themes==