Russian propaganda spreading fakes about Ukrainian forces 'looting' in Kursk region

Russian Telegram channels have recently begun to circulate disinformation that Ukrainian soldiers participating in an operation in Russia's Kursk region allegedly steal icons there and then sell them on the OLX online marketplace. As "proof," they distributed screenshots of ads from the Ukrainian marketplace, where the authors allegedly indicate in the description that the icons were brought from Kursk.

Our team found out that it was a fake. Even though such icons are sold on the OLX platform, the "ads" that were distributed by propagandists were faked in a graphic editor. The Russians changed the description, price, and names of the sellers of the icons.

In addition, the propagandists "edited" the region of origin of the product - in each of the fake ads, Kursk is displayed as a city where icons are sold. However, the Ukrainian segment of OLX covers only population centers of Ukraine, so the function of buying goods from Russia is absent there.

Such fakes are aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian army and testify to the desire of propagandists to divert the attention of the world community from real war crimes being committed by the Russian army, including looting. Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, international observers and local residents have recorded mass cases of robberies and thefts committed by the Russian military in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

Earlier, Ukrinform refuted Russian propaganda's fakes about "hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainian soldiers" and the "recruitment" of women into the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Dmytro Badrak