Russian fake: Ukraine makes video about Russian achievements in annexed Crimea

Propagandists spread anti-Ukrainian content in Ukrainian on Telegram

Russian media outlets, Telegram channels, and accounts on social media platform X spread a video about Crimea that allegedly first appeared in the Ukrainian segment of Telegram. However, the video itself is anti-Ukrainian. It compares Crimea before and after the Russian occupation in 2014. The video begins with black-and-white footage allegedly shot before 2014 and continues with vivid shots of the supposedly prosperous Crimea that the authors claim it has become over the past 10 years. The Ukrainian voice-over narrates that for 30 years Ukraine has done nothing to develop the peninsula, while Russia has been digging, concreting, and building it for 10 years. That is why Ukrainian Crimea allegedly no longer exists. Summarizing in Russian, the authors of the video added: "Crimea is now Russian".

This is a fake. The Telegram channel, which is referenced by Russian resources and called Ukrainian, has a clear pro-Russian style, although it is in Ukrainian. By the way, after more than a five-month break, this channel resumed its work only on January 16. In addition, on the morning of January 17, the video was already published. According to the metadata provided by Metadata2go.com, the anti-Ukrainian video was created at 6:50 am. It appeared on the Telegram channel at 8:02 a.m., and was preceded by a post with the same narrative at 7:56 a.m., which said that while Ukrainians were "destroying everything," Russians were "building more and more." That post served as the beginning of the story in the video.

Moreover, two hours after the video was uploaded, the channel's authors shared another post on the topic. It suggests that the channel was attacked by Russian bots and users who are very excited about the video. In this post, the channel's authors write that such behavior is quite understandable, because they (the authors - ed.) allegedly saw Russia’s superiority over Ukraine in shells, drones, aircraft and missiles on the front line. The article also says that the Russians are supported by "the country, the president, and the church."

Taking all these factors into account, it can be concluded that the Telegram channel is conducting a clear information campaign.

As for the content of the video itself, not everything is clear. The footage, which allegedly shows mutilated Crimea before 2014, was filmed after the annexation of the peninsula in 2016. The video shows the Great Mithridates Staircase, which is one of the symbols of the city of Kerch.

In the story by "Crimea.Realities (the Crimean project of Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service, part of the international information company Radio Free Europe - ed.), people not only highlight the need to care for the historical monument, but also note that the problem exists in the city as a whole.

Another architectural structure that can be seen in the Russian video is the Tavriyskiy housing complex in Simferopol. It is positioned as a business class complex that was built following after the annexation of Crimea. There are many negative comments about it on various websites.

The propagandists also showed the Tavrida highway connecting Kerch and Sevastopol, as well as the Crimean bridge. However, as Crimea.Realities journalists wrote in 2021, these facilities had a negative impact on the lives of Crimea residents. Residents of the peninsula complained that large-scale felling of trees and shrubs took place for the purpose of construction. In addition, thousands of land plots were seized for the construction of the Tavrida highway.

As for the Crimean bridge, the Russian authorities in Crimea claimed that with the launch of train traffic through the Kerch Strait, prices for food and goods on the peninsula would fall, which are more expensive due to problematic logistics. However, according to journalists, the consumer price index on the peninsula only increased in 2020-2021.

And this is only part of the problems in Crimea that Russians are trying to hide behind propaganda. By creating such fakes, they aim primarily to promote the idea of a new, prosperous peninsula to Crimean residents. In addition, such fakes are eagerly accepted by Russians without critical thinking as a reason to rejoice in the "successes" of their government.

Dmytro Badrak