Russian propaganda spreads another fake about 'hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainian soldiers,' 'recruitment' of women

To promote their traditional narratives, propagandists manipulate petition numbers on Ukrainian president's website and fake image of Ukraine's first lady

Russian media outlets and pro-war Telegram channels are spreading information that more than 220,000 petitions for granting the Hero of Ukraine status (posthumously) to fallen Ukrainian soldiers have allegedly been registered on the Ukrainian president's website. Russian propagandists claimed that this is apparently the minimum number of soldiers who died in the war.

As "proof," they published a screenshot from the official website of the head of state with a petition number.

Our team found it to be a fake and a manipulation. On the president's website, there is a list of all petitions that have been submitted, are under consideration or have already been considered. Any citizen of Ukraine can submit them.

Petitions in the format "#22/petition number -ep" have been submitted since 2015, that is, for almost ten years. Therefore, claiming that 220,000 of them are applications for the award "posthumously" is a fake and a manipulation. On the website, you can easily find petitions that had been considered by former President Petro Poroshenko, and they have the same document number format.

Russian media outlets, bots on the X social media platform and pro-war Telegram channels are also distributing a photo of a "campaign poster" that allegedly depicts Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska with the slogan "Girls, the time has come" and "Protect your loved ones, save the country for your children and grandchildren - join the Ukrainian Armed Forces," which calls on Ukrainian women to join the Ukrainian army.

This is a fake. Such a campaign poster was not posted on the official website of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and on social media. In addition, all the posters used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces for their recruitment campaign have the slogan "It's time to return what is yours" and depict soldiers from various branches of troops.

It is worth noting that the slogan "Protect your loved ones, save the country for your children and grandchildren - join the Ukrainian Armed Forces" is used in a recruitment campaign, but only on the official website of the Ukrainian Armed Forces near the "join" button.

The fake campaign poster was created using a graphic editor. In the picture, a woman who looks like Olena Zelenska is dressed not in a Ukrainian military uniform, but in the camouflage of the U.S. Armed Forces. In addition, the silhouette of a woman in military clothes and the general background were taken from a stock image on the Russian website Freepik.

In general, the subject of the mobilization of women into the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the significant exaggeration of losses among Ukrainian forces are traditional fake narratives of Russian propaganda. In particular, Russian propaganda spread the fake that Ukraine "lost more than a million soldiers" and that Ukrainian women were allegedly lured into the army by public organizations.

Russian propagandists earlier spread fake news about the improper training of Ukrainian F-16 pilots to Western audiences.

Andriy Olenin