'Positive' fakes: how Ukraine's chief banker is discredited

The use of fake sites resembling world publications is gaining momentum.

For almost two years of full-scale war, the amount of disinformation and information campaigns against Ukraine has increased significantly. Propagandists resort to new methods and use innovative schemes to manipulate public opinion both in Ukraine and in the countries of our allies. Usually, they use sensational topics, such as mobilization or conflicts between the military and political leadership. The objective of fakes is mostly to present negative information such as large military losses or the termination of military aid. However, propaganda is sometimes spread through false, but generally positive information.

One of these fakes is the recent complementary "interview" of the head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Andriy Pyshnyy. It was published on the website Daily New York Reporters and entered the Ukrainian information space.

The text of the interview does not carry any negative connotations and outright fakes about Ukraine, but it is ambiguous and aims to show the extreme closeness between Pyshnyy and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In the interview, the NBU governor allegedly talks about relations with Zelensky, comments on the issue of mobilization and talks about the president's decision, which he learned about in a private conversation. The "author" of the material calls Pyshnyy "not the second but also not the third most important person in the country."

The NBU told Ukrinform that Pyshnyy had not given such an interview.

The website Daily New York Reporters, which looks very much like The New York Times, is a fictitious media outlet.

It was created in March 2023. Links to social media do not work on this site, and there are no contacts. Among the authors are only admin, as well as Olivia Scott, on whose behalf the vast majority of materials, including the "interview" with the NBU head, were published. When going to the World section, users are redirected to the website The Foxiz Times.

There are already two links on this resource on the right. One takes you to a catalog of various site templates, where you can buy a site designed in the style of The New York Times, among other things.

The second is a link to make a payment for the purchase of a website template at a price of $59.

The site on which Andriy Pyshnyy's interview was published is one of these templates.

So why was this fake created and what is its objective?

Pyshnyy is one of the world's leading bankers and has authority both in Ukraine and abroad. Under his leadership, the National Bank of Ukraine was recently recognized as the best central bank of the year according to the Central Banking Awards, and Pyshnyy himself was named Central Banker of the Year 2024 in The Banker's Global and Europe category.

One of the goals of propaganda is to create the appearance of incompetence of the country's main banker and the economic bloc in general. To convince people that he got his position not because of his professional qualities, but because of his "closeness to the president" who has been one of the world's most influential people for the past two years.

And this is not the only fake news story that was created about the NBU governor at the end of a successful year for the institution.

Back in October, propagandists invented a fake that Andriy Pyshnyy had allegedly resigned. Later, the NBU head denied this, but then came a second fake. According to the Center for Countering Disinformation, a clone of The American Insider website was created in the fall of 2023, where a fake complementary material was published about Pyshnyy, who allegedly resigned the day before. Obviously, according to the plan of the propagandists, Pyshnyy himself ordered such a story to be published in the media.

But the real news site The American Insider uses the "org" domain, while the fake site uses the "live" domain. Currently, links to the fake site are generally inactive, and this site can only be viewed through the web archive.

In this way, propagandists are trying to undermine the success of the Ukrainian financial system and one of its leaders, Pyshnyy. Allegedly, all the laudatory reviews in the world community and the foreign press could simply be ordered, and the awards could simply be "bought."

Another purpose of such materials is to cause Ukrainians to mistrust Ukrainian and Western media, pro-Ukrainian Telegram channels and bloggers on other social networks.

In particular, such an example is another fake related to the copying of The New York Times, which went viral in the Ukrainian information space.

This is a fake article in The New York Times stating that "the US and the entire NATO bloc will not object to the use of any weapons by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the territory of the Russian Federation" and the statement that "the first batch [of such weapons] could be handed over to the military within the next two weeks."

But there is no such material on the official website of the publication. Moreover, the fake screenshot of the "article" has the wrong panel and duplicates part of the text.

Such fakes are aimed directly at creating the effect of useless waiting. Their goal is clear: to make Ukrainians disillusioned with their allies and decrease our morale, fighting spirit, and trust in media outlets that report the truth.

How do such narratives get into the Ukrainian information space, bypassing Russian sources of origin? Through bots that spread fake links and screenshots in comments sections on various chat rooms, forums, social networks and even news sites. Anonymous people leave in the comments section either a link to a fake site or screenshots.

This is how, for example, a fake screenshot from The New York Times got into the Ukrainian information space. It was published on the X social media platform and in the comments to the news on the website of a well-known Ukrainian news site.

Always check information on social networks and Telegram channels. Even millionaire channels are run by anonymous administrators who can make mistakes and not check the information themselves. Therefore, trust only verified news sites and official sources of information.

Andriy Olenin, Dmytro Badrak