Russia has stepped up its disinformation campaign regarding alleged Ukrainian military strikes on civilians
Russian propaganda has stepped up the dissemination of claims about alleged Ukrainian strikes on the civilian population. According to analysts, these narratives may be used to justify Russian attacks on peaceful cities and divert attention from their own losses.
This was stated by Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council.
Kovalenko stated that the more successful the Defense Forces’ strikes on Russian military targets become, the more frequently the Russian side fabricates stories about alleged Ukrainian attacks on civilians.
“Russia is increasingly lying about Ukraine ‘attacking civilians,’ providing no evidence or fabricating stories about ‘children in Starobilsk.’ The more successful our attacks on their military targets are, the more frequently these lies appear,” Kovalenko emphasized.
He stressed that in reality, it is Russia that is systematically attacking Ukrainian cities with missiles, strike drones, and UAVs, striking civilian infrastructure.
“The truth is that it is Russia that is constantly attacking civilians with missiles, attack UAVs, and drones, because it is also waging a demographic war against us, the goal of which is to kill people and force Ukrainians to leave Ukrainian territory,” stated the head of the CPD.
According to him, Russian attacks regularly claim the lives of civilians in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odesa, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kherson, Nikopol, and other cities in Ukraine. Kovalenko believes that the spread of such disinformation is an attempt by the Kremlin to create a “parallel reality” and blur responsibility for its own war crimes.
“Against the backdrop of attacks on our civilians, they are fabricating stories claiming that Ukraine is acting just like Russia. And all of this is to justify their own terror as a supposed ‘response to our actions,’” he noted.
Separately, Kovalenko commented on Russian claims regarding the alleged deaths of children in Starobilsk. According to him, these reports are untrue. “This is the same old lie about ‘children killed in Starobilsk,’ although in reality it was the ‘Rubicon’ pilots who were killed there—the ones who were killing our people,” he stated on Telegram.
As a reminder, the Center for Countering Disinformation has recorded another wave of a large-scale information attack by the Russian Federation aimed at discrediting Ukraine before the international community.
In frontline areas, the enemy is distributing fake leaflets containing threats of an offensive.
As a reminder, Russia is spreading a fake story about Ukraine preparing provocations involving hazardous substances in the Donetsk region.
The Ground Forces have refuted the false claim regarding the death of a Hungarian national at the TCC.
