Russian propagandist media are working overtime disseminating all manner of fake stories about Ukraine’s preparation for hosting the 2017 Eurovision song contest. The newest mendacious tale is a claim that Kyiv is removing its homeless from the streets of the capital before the start of the contest. Lenta.ru, NTV, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Tsargrad and others literally had a field day with this fake. It all began when the Ukrainian news site…
Nationalists demand shop clerks speak Ukrainian, declared RIA Novosti. Only Ukrainian in cafes and shops, announced Vesti. Kyiv city council surrounded by nationalists demanding only Ukrainian is spoken, warned Novostnoe Agentstvo Kharkov. Complete Ukrainization starting in Kyiv blazed News One. All these fake warnings raising fake alarms arose because the Kyiv City Council agreed to explore a new language project. The document, which was approved as a draft and its…
By Craig Newmark, Linkedin In high school US history, I learned that a trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy. As a news consumer, like most folks, I want news we can trust. That means standing up for trustworthy news media and learning how to spot clickbait and deceptive news. A group of tech industry leaders, academic institutions, and nonprofits are teaming up and funding a combined $14M million to…
The self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), the Russian supported separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine bordering Russia, has resorted to using the recent accidental death of an OSCE monitor for propaganda purposes, accusing Ukraine’s military of shelling the region where a land mine blew up a vehicle carrying an OSCE monitoring team and impeding the investigation into the explosion. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry responded to the accusation and dismissed it as…
By Jim Kovpak, for StopFake Often people assume that it is only Russian media that distorts the truth about Ukraine and as a rule Western media is more factual and trustworthy. While it is true that there is a huge difference between Russia’s consolidated state-run media, which is deliberately run as a propaganda organ, and the multitude of privately and publicly owned media in the West, this does not always…
By Andrew Rettman – Investigation – Sex and lies: Russia’s EU news (20.4.2017, EU Observer) Rape, paedophilia, incest, and sodomy – Russian media have targeted France and Germany for years with hundreds of fake or distorted stories, many of which were designed to incite sexual revulsion toward asylum seekers and the politicians who gave them shelter. Conspiracy theories about false-flag terrorist attacks and about Nazism have also featured in Moscow’s propaganda…
The latest edition of StopFake News with Romeo Kokriatski. This week’s fakes include claims of a nuclear explosion in Ukraine, President Poroshenko alleged disappointment in the country’s armed forces, fake austerity measures and an accusation of genocide.
Russian propagandist site Life.ru published an article claiming that Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko admitted that European armies were superior to Ukraine’s armed forces. Poroshenko allegedly made this announcement in a speech to Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs, commonly known as Chatham House. RIA Novosti took Life’s claims even further and declared that President Poroshenko is disappointed in Ukraine’s armed forces. Russia’s disinformation arsenal usual suspects quickly followed suit: Lenta.ru,…
Dubious and less than legitimate web sites regularly publish stories claiming that Ukraine possesses hidden nuclear weapons. The latest version of this unsubstantiated and questionable narrative appeared in the US Veterans Today website, claiming that a nuclear weapon detonated during the March munitions depot fire that occurred in Balakliya, near Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. The Russian blogosphere immediately picked up this fake story and Russian sites such Infomaxx disseminated this…
Russian propagandist media (REN TV, Vesti) disseminated a fake this week claiming that a lieutenant in the Ukrainian armed forces was advocating razing Crimea and the Donbas in order to return these occupied territories to Ukraine. The source for this distorted claim is an interview that Lieutenant Vsevolod Stebliuk gave to the information portal Online.ua , where he does use the word raze, however, in a context that is completely…
