Disinformation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

[9][10][11][12] It also seeks to sow disunity among Western countries who support Ukraine; to counter NATO; and to cover up or create plausible deniability for Russian war crimes.

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.

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.

[46][47] 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".

[89][90][91] 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.

[116][117] 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".

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.

[135] 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.

[138][139] On 28 October 2022 Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, accused Ukraine of using drones with "combat mosquitoes" which spread "dangerous viruses".

[154] 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.

[157] 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.

[160] 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".

[196] 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.

"[197] 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.

"[201][202][203] 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.

[204] 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.

[206] 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.

Ruslan Leviev, the founder of Conflict Intelligence Team, and Andrei Zakharov, a correspondent of the BBC News Russian, are of the opinion that the "conscript base" is a fake.

[229][230] In December 2022, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov and head of military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov claimed that a new wave of mobilisation would begin on 5 January 2023, but this didn't happen.

[231] On 5 September 2023, a document allegedly signed by Sergei Shoigu on a new wave of Russian mobilization appeared in the Ukrainian media and Telegram channels (including UNIAN).

[233][234] A few days later, on 11 September, the General 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.

[237] 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.

[239] 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 to Doppelganger, a Russian disinformation campaign.

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 outlet Sputnik Radio.

[255] Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human 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.

[260] In March 2022, China Global Television Network (CGTN) paid for digital ads on Facebook targeting users with newscasts featuring pro-Kremlin talking points after Meta Platforms banned Russian state media advertisements.

"[279] In China,[280][281] India,[282][283] Indonesia,[284] Malaysia,[285] Africa,[286] the Arab world,[287] and Latin America,[288] some social media users trended towards showing sympathy for Russian narratives.

[290] Additionally, many Indonesians supported Russia due to positive reports of Ramzan Kadyrov and claims of the Azov Regiment covering their bullets with pork lard to be used against Muslim Chechen troops in the invasion.

[297] European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced an EU-wide ban of Russian state-sponsored RT and Sputnik news channels on 27 February, after Poland and Estonia had done so days before.