False claims about Ukrainian Nazis, Russian war crimes and Western sanctions have been rife since Russia invaded Ukraine. How and by whom is disinformation used?
Vladimir Putin himself, as well as Russian ministries and embassies, keep spreading misinformation
The war in Ukraine has been accompanied by many large-scale disinformation campaigns for the past 12 months, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated and are spreading in numerous ways. A number of false or misleading narratives are constantly being disseminated by the various actors such as the Russian state media, young influencers and bots, which convey an alternative picture of the war in Ukraine and its consequences to both the audience in Russia and the users in the West should. Pro-Ukrainian hoaxes about the war have also been recorded by international fact-checkers. What are the narratives and how have the disinformation campaigns evolved over the past 12 months?
Already in the run-up to the Russian invasion, the Russian side at all levels – from the head of state Vladimir Putin to the state media and bloggers close to the government – spread the false claim that was supposed to justify the attack on Ukraine: The reason for the invasion was the alleged provocation by NATO threatening Russia. In a fact check, DW has already shown how effective this narrative has become in the West. The classic propaganda technique is used again and again, in which cause and effect are reversed, the victims are made into the perpetrators and the facts are completely twisted.
Western sanctions and food shortages
According to the experts, this principle can be seen in the context of the EU and US sanctions against Russia. “The sanctions, the response, are presented as the real problem and the West is presented as the cause of this food shortage that exists,” explains Lutz Güllner, Head of Strategic Communications at the European External Action Service (EEAS).
When it comes to food shortages, Russian social media ascribes responsibility to the “collective West”. It is said not to be caused by the war, but instead Western sanctions prevented Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter, from supplying grain to other countries. Such claims are in line with statements by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which cited “unilateral anti-Russian restrictions” and the EU's “declared total trade war” as the cause. But that is wrong.
There are no EU sanctions against Russian food exports to the world market. “Food exports from Russia are not sanctioned,” Martin Rentsch, spokesman for the World Food Program, confirmed to DW. And the association of Russia-based grain exporters, Rusgrain Union, also reiterated this: “We emphasize that sanctions and export controls against Russia affect or will affect non-essential food exports and agricultural products for developing countries.”
The fact is: According to the European Council, Ukrainian wheat exports collapsed by up to 90 percent – mainly due to the Russian sea blockade, which made grain shipments like here in Odesa impossible
The tale of Nazi rule and the alleged staging of war crimes
One propaganda narrative that never caught on, says Lutz Güllner, is “the tale of so-called Nazi rule in Ukraine.” According to NewsGuard's Madeline Roache, it is still one of the most widespread narratives a year after the invasion – most recently during the World Cup in Qatar, three drunk Ukrainians allegedly spread Nazi symbols. The fictitious claim was spread in the form of a fake video by the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera.
The Ukrainian president has often been the target of disinformation: the Jew Volodymyr Zelenskyy of all people is portrayed as a Nazi, liar and warmonger and even compared to Hitler.
When asked what had shaken them the most over the past 12 months of the war, the experts polled by DW all gave the same answer: attempts to attribute the Bucha massacre to the Ukrainian side, despite multiple sources including on-site eyewitness accounts , footage from surveillance cameras and satellite images clearly demonstrate the war crimes committed by the Russian army. “It was shocking that the evidence, the very clear evidence that was provided by journalists on the ground, was so brazenly denied,” said Julia Smirnova, senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), who is also the Investigated the spread of disinformation in this war.
Since then, Russia has repeatedly used the accusation that the Ukrainians staged the war and the civilian victims of the Russian attacks and the Russian occupation. In addition to official statements by the country's political leadership, Russia also uses diplomatic accounts, for example those of the Russian embassies in various countries, to spread this narrative, explains Lutz Güllner from the EAD.
The classic technique of perpetrator-victim reversal was last used by Russian propaganda with the Russian rocket attack applied to a skyscraper in Dnipro
Most recently, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed Ukraine for the rocket hit in a residential building in Dnipro, which killed 45 people: “Russia's armed forces do not attack residential buildings or objects of social infrastructure,” said Peskov. He claims Ukrainian air defenses caused the destruction of over 200 apartments in the house. And users on social media go even further and accuse: “Zelenskyj did it just to get more weapons and air defense systems from the West”.
According to official information from the Ukrainian side, the attack was a Russian Kh-22 (also known as X-22 and AS-4 KITCHEN) missile. The British Ministry of Defense intelligence also confirmed that the apartment building in Dnipro was “most likely” destroyed by AS-4 KITCHEN.
“Achievements” on the battlefield
The false reports about “successes” and “defeats” of the two warring parties also form a large block of narratives. That's also true of the Ukrainian side, according to NewsGuard's Madeline Roache, albeit “much less” compared to the claims we've seen from the Russian government. Of course, the pro-Ukrainian claims we've seen tended to do so to exaggerate the success of the Ukrainian army”.
A well-known example comes from the beginning of the war: the myth of the so-called ghost of Kiev inspired many Ukrainians in the first weeks after the invasion. This was about a fighter pilot who is said to have single-handedly destroyed almost 40 Russian aircraft. Videos and pictures allegedly showing him went viral. However, according to DW research, the spirit of Kiev never existed. Ultimately, the leadership of the Air Force of Ukraine also declared that the “Ghost of Kiev” is “a legend created by the Ukrainians”.
The most recent example from the Russian side came in January 2023, when the official of the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that Russia managed to kill over 600 Ukrainian soldiers in dormitories in Kramatorsk with a massive rocket attack. But even on the day of the statement, international reporters on the spot found that there were neither destroyed dormitories nor evidence of Ukrainian soldiers being accommodated in the buildings in Kramatorsk.
As for the death toll, neither Russia nor Ukraine provide credible numbers. In some cases, Ukrainian officials say the number of Russian soldiers killed is significantly higher than the US government and the UN – possibly not without ulterior motives. The actual number of victims is often difficult to determine in war because they are misused by both sides for propaganda purposes. While Ukraine speaks of 145,000 dead Russian soldiers, Russia last reported 5937 people as the official number of the dead in September.
Discrediting Western media
Although many pro-Russian or pro-Kremlin narratives are not new, their delivery channels and presentation have changed and multiplied in the months since the invasion – not least as a result of the blocking of Russian state media such as RT and Sputnik in EU countries.
In addition to fake documents and bogus “fact-checking” websites, Madeline Roache cites another new way of spreading the fake news. More and more frequently, fabricated videos and news reports with disinformation are appearing online under the logos of international media such as the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera and also DW. “I think these are particularly troubling because they often look quite convincing and not only spread disinformation but also risk undermining trust in these news organizations and just creating general confusion about what is and isn't true “, says Roche.
A fake video, allegedly by DW, was used to spread disinformation about Ukrainian refugees
< p>This scam ties into another major pro-Russian narrative: the demonization of Ukrainian refugees, as another DW fact check shows. For example, a video allegedly produced by Deutsche Welle was circulated on social media, which reported on an alleged criminal refugee from Ukraine and in fact turned out to be a fairly professionally produced fake.
“In fact, in Russia, but also abroad, information and propaganda campaigns are repeatedly outsourced to private actors,” explains Julia Smirnova. “Be it troll factories or PR agencies or influencers on TikTok and other social media platforms who are then addressed and who also spread these propaganda narratives in their own blogs without making it clear”.
Regardless of whether it is transparent, as in the case of state actors, or very professional and finely knit, the long-term effect of the disinformation should not be underestimated. “The Russian disinformation ecosystem keeps trying to confuse with many different narratives on the same topic, so that in the end the consumers or those who are supposed to achieve this have received so many different versions of a fact or a problem area that they start not to believe any source anymore. And this undermining, this undermining of trust in reporting is very, very important,” warns Lutz Güllner from EAD. Because the more often something is repeated, the more likely it is to get stuck in people's minds. And this remains one of the main strategies used by disinformation actors.