Russian propaganda spreading fakes to English-speaking audience about repressions against military and civilians in Ukraine

Propagandists faked videos on behalf of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Reporters Without Borders

Recently, the Kremlin's propaganda machine has increasingly resorted to creating video fakes and attributing them to international organizations and independent think tanks. Primarily, this is done to mislead the audience and to make the fake itself appear more credible.

For example, recently, pro-war Telegram channels and pro-Russian media outlets, including English-language ones, posted a video allegedly created by an American think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The video states that, according to an ISW study, 70% of Ukrainian prisoners of war refuse to have their names included in exchange lists. This is allegedly due to the fact that one in three Ukrainian Armed Forces service members are “prosecuted” or “subjected” to criminal charges of treason for surrendering after returning from captivity. Additionally, the video references an alleged quote from General David Petraeus, former director of the US CIA (2011-2012), who spoke about the issue of Ukrainians' reluctance to return from captivity due to concerns about imprisonment or lynching.

This is a fake. There is no such video on the ISW's official website or other resources. Moreover, the last video was uploaded to the ISW's YouTube channel one month ago. The videos on the channel have recently been produced in a format that differs significantly from that used by propagandists, including a notably different ending. It contains the inscription “DONATE TODAY” rather than the logos of social networks, as in the version of fake makers.

The video has been edited from existing footage sourced from the Internet. For example, the scenes featuring chevrons and Ukrainian prisoners of war were sourced from a report by the Russian propaganda TV channel Zvezda on February 25, 2022.

Another photo was “borrowed” by propagandists from the Facebook page of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. In a post published on November 3, 2022, the agency's press service announced that Ukrainian soldiers had been released from captivity.

In general, the footage of the events covered in the video has nothing to do with the propagandists' narrative that Ukrainians do not want to return home from Russian captivity.

This is not the only video fake that propagandists have created on behalf of an international organization. The other day, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels posted a video allegedly distributed by Reporters Without Borders, an international organization for the protection of human rights and freedom of speech. The video claims that over the past year, 12,000 Ukrainians have allegedly become victims of Ukraine's “repressive apparatus” because of the phone numbers of their Russian relatives in their contact lists and Internet searches in Russian. The video claims that in October alone, 12 people died during interrogations in Sumy.

This fake was also created by propagandists. While the video does feature the Reporters Without Borders logo, it is not as dynamic as the authentic videos published by the organization on its resources. The propagandists obtained the initial footage of the journalist from the organization's YouTube channel, which was uploaded over a month ago. It shows how Russia used a fake video about Reporters Without Borders and Ukraine for propaganda purposes. The fact that this is the same video is evidenced by the presenter's clothes, the same microphone location on his shirt, the folds on his shirt and T-shirt, and his hairstyle.

By the way, there are no other videos of this presenter wearing identical clothes on the Reporters Without Borders channel (except for the same video with French subtitles - ed.)

Other footage used by the propagandists in the video is not related to the information provided by the fake makers in the fake video. For instance, they used a video of a man claiming he was a victim of repression. However, as reported on the Telegram channel of the StratCom of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, this man was in fact the former head of the ATO union in Vovchansk in September 2022, who "handed over" war veterans to the Russians.

Such fakes are created to spread disinformation that the Ukrainian government is allegedly actively engaging in illegal actions and massively oppressing the Ukrainian population. They are aimed at demonizing the Ukrainian government, creating negative public opinion about our country and destabilizing relations with Western partners.

Earlier, Ukrinform refuted a video fake about mass involvement of Polish citizens in work of territorial recruitment centers.

Dmytro Badrak