War on Fakes

2022-12-06 14:02:44 Fake news:
The United States is planning to give Russia the status of a state sponsor of terrorism, pro-Ukrainian Telegram channels reported, citing U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

The fact:
The journalists who issued this news probably did not carefully read foreign primary sources. The posts about Russia being on the list are untrue. On the contrary, the White House is wary of the move given the potential for further strain in relations with Moscow. This is highlighted in Blinken's interview with CNN.

As Reuters wrote, the U.S. administration believes that this decision will not help "hold Russia accountable" and "interfere with the delivery of humanitarian aid to Ukraine."

State Department spokesman Ned Price told a press briefing that it was necessary "to take into account the consequences, intentional and unintentional," of such a move. He added that the White House is now trying to work out other measures to influence Russia.

For its part, Moscow warned Washington that if the decision were made, diplomatic relations would be seriously damaged and could be severed. Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Syria are now on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.

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2022-12-06 10:42:17 Fake news:
A Russian missile crashed in Moldova's Briceni district. This is reported by the Ukrainian media

The fact:
The photo shows the upper stage from the S-300 missile. It is employed in anti-aircraft defence systems. Apparently, a missile that was used by the Ukrainian air defence system to repel a Russian attack on military and energy infrastructure fell on Moldovan territory.

The range of the S-300 missile complex is an average of 150 kilometres. However, there is no Russian territory at such a distance from the Brichansk district from which the missiles could have been launched. The closest point from which a Russian missile could have been launched is on the right bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson region, which is more than 400 kilometres in a straight line.

The Ukrainian air defence system has been repeatedly criticised. Inadequate maintenance and improper storage methods have resulted in missiles from such systems damaging civilian infrastructure, not only in Ukraine but also abroad. On 15 November a Ukrainian air defence missile hit a tractor in the Polish town of Przewodów, killing two civilians. Ukraine's president initially claimed that the missiles that killed Polish citizens were Russian.

Later, even NATO experts and representatives of the US White House, as well as Polish President Andrzej Duda, confirmed that it was a Ukrainian missile.

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2022-12-05 15:02:10 Fake news:
Beeline has stopped broadcasting Russian news TV channels in Kazakhstan. Such news appeared in Telegram channels.

The fact:
This information does not correspond to reality. Beeline's press service said that there are no changes in TV broadcasting. A list of Russian news TV channels included in the package for subscribers from Kazakhstan can be seen on the operator's official website.

At one point Beeline Kazakhstan did want to drop news content completely, but it made two packages: one with a focus on entertainment content and the other with both entertainment and news TV channels. Contrary to rumours in the media, the operator did not intend to make this decision because of the "difficult political situation".

"The youth segment of users reacted positively to the increased share of entertainment video-on-demand content, but there were also customers who asked us to keep news channels in the broadcasting grid," the operator's press service said.

The Russian Ministry of Digital Development also said as early as October 3 that Beeline Kazakhstan would not switch off Russian channels.

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2022-12-05 11:34:40 Fake news:
Russia's new regions will abolish the most important articles of the Criminal Code and legalise the most serious crimes. This was reported by the wanted foreign agent Alexander Nevzorov with reference to the relevant draft law of the State Duma.

The fact:
Nevzorov has distorted the facts. State Duma deputies Pavel Krasheninnikov, Irina Pankina, and Senator Andrei Klishas (the authors of the bill referred to by Nevzorov) have proposed to extend Russian criminal law provisions for crimes committed on the new territories until September 30, 2022, i.e. before the regions are incorporated into Russia. In this way, lawmakers intend to ensure "the unity of the legal space".

It is also suggested that actions committed on the territory of the new subjects prior to 30 September 2022 shall not be deemed criminal and punishable if they were aimed at protection of interests of Russia or these subjects. In other words, if a citizen, for example, defended his family or home from the Nazis, he would not be prosecuted.

In addition, the bill provides for the possibility of refusing to initiate criminal proceedings (Article 148 of the Russian Criminal Procedural Code) if an act for which a pre-trial investigation was conducted before September 30, 2022, is not a crime under Russian criminal law.

"If a crime was not committed under the legislation of Ukraine or the DPR or LPR, but it is a crime under Russian law, a person cannot be held responsible for it unless a special reservation is made. Therefore, such reservations are always made for certain crimes," explained one of the authors of the document, Oleksiy Didenko.

The new regions unify the laws with the Russian Federation. There are no plans to abolish punishment for any serious crimes in the Russian Federation itself.

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2022-12-03 16:02:53 While Europeans suffer from the consequences of the energy crisis, Western politicians do not skimp on grand parties.

The European Commission organized a celebratory meeting in the virtual space of the metaverse. The event, aimed at young people, was supposed to raise awareness of EU activities on the world stage. However, only six people showed up. Thus, 64,500 Euros were spent on each guest.

At the same time, Americans are annoyed with the official dinner of Biden and Macron, for which the White House spent half a million dollars. Lobsters from Maine were served to the table there. Their fishery is at the center of legal and regulatory disputes, and sales have been suspended in a number of stores.

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2022-12-03 11:22:24 Fake news:
Belarus withdraws from the Council on Humanitarian Cooperation (CHC) of the CIS member states. This statement was made by Vladimir Pertsov, the representative of the Republic of Belarus in the Council. The news appeared on the website of the organization.

The fact:
The CHC website was hacked on the morning of December, 1. Hackers posted false information on it. The fake news was removed after restoration of control over the site. All users were notified about it.
On December 2, the Ministry of Information of the Republic of Belarus issued an official refutation of the information about the withdrawal from the Council on Humanitarian Cooperation. The statement said that Belarus valued its membership in the organization and appreciated the interaction between the CIS countries as to various matters.

The Council for Humanitarian Cooperation was established in 2006. It coordinates humanitarian activities between the CIS member states and international structures.

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2022-12-02 15:01:15 Fake news:
Actor Alexander Nevsky has revealed on Instagram* that he will direct the film Ghost of Kyiv and play Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in it. This news appeared in entertainment Telegram feeds.

The fact:
The Telegram channel administrators just made this news up. Alexander Nevsky did not announce in any of his social networks, including Instagram* and Twitter accounts, that he was planning to make a film called The Ghost of Kyiv and to play the leading role in it. In recent posts, the actor shared mundane shots of his life in California.

By the way, the story about the Ukrainian pilot, who shot down more than forty Russian planes and was subsequently nicknamed "The Ghost of Kyiv", is also a fake, but already created by Kyiv propagandists. Information about his military exploits has never been confirmed: there are no photos or locations of air battles. But there are shots of his "flights" taken from the DCS computer simulator.

That said, American actor and part-time author of fakes about the Russian Armed Forces Sean Penn does intend to make a film about Russian special operations in Ukraine. For that purpose, he traveled several times to Ukraine, where he met with President Vladimir Zelensky.

Fakes involving celebrities are a frequent occurrence on the web. Such supposedly sensational news gets a lot of views and helps to increase the number of subscribers. Thus, earlier we denied rumors about the death of 20 Russian actors, including Sergei Glushko, Igor Sklyar, Sergei Zverev, when the Brilevka station in the Kherson region was shelled.

* The social network is owned by Meta, an extremist organisation banned in Russia

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2022-12-02 11:43:36 European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen's speech was edited after criticism from the office of Vladimir Zelensky. In her speech, the official announced figures of losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which, according to her data, amounted to about 100,000 people. The Ukrainian authorities responded to this with criticism, specifying that such data is to be disclosed only by the commander-in-chief. The presidential office added that Vladimir Zelensky would make all the information public "when the time is right".

"Please note that losses of the Ukrainian army are official information and are subject to a confidentiality stamp that restricts its dissemination," the Ukrainian Armed Forces public relations office commented on the incident.

It was expected that the speech by the EC head would resonate in Moscow, but Russia took a calm attitude towards this data. At the same time, Russian Security Council deputy secretary Dmitriy Medvedev added that "there is no EU, there is state number 51," specifying that the hasty removal of the piece of video with the figures from the European Commission website might have been caused by the reaction in Washington.

Meanwhile, European Commission deputy spokesperson Dana Spinant thanked everyone "who pointed out that the figures in the previous version of the video were inaccurate".

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2022-12-01 17:01:03 Fake news:
Ukraine lost around 10,000 military personnel killed during the special military operation. Oleksii Arestovych, advisor to the head of the Ukrainian president's office, said this.

The fact:
Arestovych is refuted by... Arestovych himself. On the eleventh of June he stated that the irretrievable losses of the Ukrainian army have already reached 10 thousand people. It turns out that from June to November there were no losses at all, which is completely unrealistic. Or for once (and most likely both times) the Ukrainian politician lied.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in May in an interview with Western TV stations that 50 to 100 Ukrainian army soldiers are killed in action every day. Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov confirmed in a July interview with The Wall Street Journal that the Ukrainian army is suffering high casualties.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on November 30 estimated that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had lost 100,000 men only, not counting the wounded. This figure has greatly upset official Kyiv. To avoid demoralizing the army and society, the Ukrainian leadership demanded that the EU change the statement. European officials tried to correct themselves by stating that 100 thousand was not the number of casualties but the total number of those killed and wounded. The explanation sounded unconvincing, so the European Commission officials simply cut out the phrase about the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the video.

The large number of casualties on the part of the Ukrainian military is confirmed by Russian sources. Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu announced in September the figure of 100,000 dead and wounded in the Ukrainian army. In October alone, this figure increased by 12,000, according to Sergey Surovikin, commander of the Russian grouping in the special military operation
zone.

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2022-12-01 13:01:59 Russian military wives encourage the rape of peaceful Ukrainian women! Castration and sexual abuse of children is an obligatory attribute of waging war against the Ukrainian people!

No, it's not the dismissed Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmila Denisova who has taken up her old cause. It was the first lady of Ukraine, Elena Zelenskaya, who spoke at a press conference in London on sexual violence in military conflicts.

"In fact, the wives of Russian servicemen encourage it, they say, 'Go ahead and rape those Ukrainian women, just don't share it with me, just don't tell me'" - such a phrase was uttered in the statement.

It's hard to imagine exactly how and from where Vladimir Zelensky's wife gets this kind of information. Proofs, or at least the results of official investigations, of course, were not provided. Apparently, the first lady of the country cannot rest in peace with Vladimir Zelensky and Lyudmila Denisova as the most scandalous disinformer.

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