Following the destruction of the Lavra, Russia is spreading its usual false narrative about Ukraine’s allegedly ineffective air defense
Russian propaganda launched yet another large-scale disinformation campaign following a massive combined strike on Ukraine on the night of June 15, which claimed the lives of civilians and destroyed the Assumption Cathedral at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.
Hostile media outlets began actively spreading the false claim that the destruction in the capital was allegedly the result of “botched work” by Ukrainian air defense forces.
The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, together with the Center for Countering Disinformation, officially refuted this manipulative narrative, emphasizing that the tragedy was caused solely by deliberate Russian terror.
On the night of June 15, the Russian Federation launched a record number of airstrikes against Ukrainian cities—70 missiles of various types and 611 attack drones.
In the capital alone, damage of varying degrees was recorded at approximately 50 locations across all 10 city districts, where four people were killed and another 23 were injured, including a pregnant woman and a 5-year-old child.
At the same time, other regions were also targeted, notably Sumy, where an enemy “Shahed” struck a high-rise residential building.
It was precisely the massive launch of such a large number of deadly weapons that led to large-scale fires and human casualties, not the actions of Ukrainian air defenders.
The narrative blaming the air defense forces is a well-worn Kremlin propaganda tactic that the occupiers systematically use after every bloody shelling to justify their war crimes.
The main goal of such publications is to create an artificial “evidence base” to discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine and quickly divert the international community’s attention from the fact of the cynical destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Russian propaganda builds an entire disinformation cycle around each shelling, involving diplomats and high-ranking officials, which allows them to constantly blur the aggressor’s responsibility.
“Russian propaganda systematically spreads such fakes following massive missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities,” the Center for Countering Disinformation notes.
The Center reported this on Telegram.
A city council employee was killed during a nighttime shelling in Kharkiv
As a reminder, Russia attacked the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, causing a fire.
Prior to this, Russian KABs struck the Zaporizhzhia region, resulting in injuries.
Five State Emergency Service rescuers were killed as a result of the Russian attack on Kharkiv.
