Russian propaganda exaggerating Ukrainian losses after missile strike in Poltava, spreading fakes about death of 'NATO instructors'

On September 3, the Russian army attacked an educational institution in Poltava with two ballistic missiles. According to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, the strike left 55 people dead and 328 injured.

Immediately after the attack, Russian propaganda launched a large-scale psychological operation aimed at exaggerating the losses among Ukrainians from the Russian attack and influencing the morale of society.

Let us consider several cases of how Russian propaganda manipulates the number of those killed in the Russian strike on Poltava according to the principle of "who can give a higher number."

Initially, Kremlin-run media outlets, pro-war Telegram channels and pro-Russian bots on X shared a screenshot from the stories of an Instagram user, calling on residents of Poltava to urgently donate blood due to the allegedly "large number of dead defenders." The post also stated that 190 people were allegedly killed in the missile strike.

This is a fake. There is no evidence or official statements of the Ukrainian authorities about "190 killed" in the Russian strike on Poltava. Our team decided to analyze the "primary source" of the fake that Russian propaganda referred to. The stories on Instagram were allegedly shared by an account with part of his nickname sketched out. However, its first part can be seen - "hrytsenko." Also, a propaganda media outlet wrote that the "news" about the large number of dead Ukrainians was allegedly reported by a "volunteer named Hrytsenko." We did not find a user with the nickname "hrytsenko" and an avatar on Instagram as in the fake screenshot, who is indicated as a "volunteer from Poltava."

It turned out that the source of the fake is Russian war correspondent Boris Rozhin, whose direct function is to spread disinformation about Ukraine and the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Another group of propagandists spread fake information about an even greater number of those killed and wounded in Poltava. Among them are the Kremlin media, Russian war correspondents on Telegram, and bots on X, which replicate videos from the TikTok account of a girl named Anna Zagaevskaya. In the video, she says that 215 people were allegedly killed and 340 injured in Poltava. Propagandists also write that this "insider" is apparently a local resident.

This is a fake. The girl does not provide evidence of her words and tells the story to the camera in a place that cannot be identified. Judging by other accounts on the girl's social networks, she is from Snihurivka, Mykolaiv region, and is currently studying at the Odesa Law Academy. Based on this, it can be concluded that she has nothing to do with Poltava.

It should be noted that her video, being distributed by propagandists, was posted on a private TikTok account, to which only followers whose subscriptions have been confirmed by the girl herself have access. The accounts of Russian propagandists are among them.

An Ukrinform correspondent tried to contact Anna Zagaevskaya and find out where she got the information about such a large number of victims of the Russian attack in Poltava. At the time of publication of the material, she did not respond.

However, Russian propaganda did not stop with its manipulations about the victims in Poltava and started spreading disinformation about a much larger number of dead Ukrainians. For example, Russian propaganda on Telegram and X spreads the post of former Ukrainian MP Ihor Mosiychuk, who claims that as many as 600 people were allegedly killed in a Russian ballistic missile attack on an educational institution in Poltava.

This is a fake. As in the two previous cases, Mosiychuk also does not provide any evidence from where he has information about such a large number of victims of the Russian strike. It is worth noting that at the beginning of the full-scale war, the former lawmaker fled Ukraine and regularly played along with Russian propaganda, spreading disinformation and fakes on his social media accounts.

In particular, in January 2023, Mosiychuk said on his TikTok channel that the Russians had hit military factories in Ukraine and provided their names and locations. According to a story published on the website Texty.org.ua on November 27, 2023, Mosiychuk helped pro-Russian politician and journalist Oleksandr Dubinsky spread disinformation.

On March 2, 2024, Mosiychuk stated that the Ukrainian military had allegedly shot down a Russian Shahed drone over Odesa, rather than on the approach to the city, thereby accusing Ukrainian air defenders of the deaths of 12 people. On March 28, the Center for Countering Disinformation and the Cyber Department of the Security Service of Ukraine discovered a network of spreading hostile disinformation on TikTok and made public a list of malicious channels, including Mosiychuk's channel.

In addition, propagandists spread their favorite fake about the death of "NATO mercenaries" during a Russian missile strike, this time in Poltava. Russian propaganda, through the Russian media and social networks, reproduces disinformation that "Swedish instructors" were allegedly killed in the Russian attack on the city. According to propagandists, they supposedly taught Ukrainians how to operate ASC 890 aircraft, which NATO member country Sweden handed over to Ukraine. Russian propagandists referred to a Facebook post by volunteer Britta Ellwanger.

This is a fake. The volunteer did not make such a post. She also denied this disinformation on her Facebook page.

This Russian disinformation campaign is aimed, first and foremost, at sowing Ukrainians' distrust of the military command and authorities, as well as affecting morale both in the army and in society.

Russian propaganda earlier created a fake about British journalists illegally crossing the Russian border to justify an attack on them in Kramatorsk.

Andriy Olenin