On the 10th of May Russia started a new offensive in the Kharkiv region and launched several disinformation and manipulations to sow panic among Ukrainians and their partners. The current situation is difficult indeed: Russian troops have control of part of the territory and the battles continue. However, deceiving information divides society and complicates the defense.
The key narratives were extracted from a video, created by the American channel Redacted, one of the most prominent spreaders of disinformation to Western audiences, which continuously articulates lies on several geopolitical topics. One of its hosts Clayton Morris discusses the offensive with Alexander Mercouris, another pro-Russian propagandist, based in London.
In this article, we will debunk the most prominent statements of the new wave of Russian propaganda, which are being spread now.
The offensive was unpredictable for Ukrainians and their allies
The increase in the number of Russian troops on the border was observed in advance.
In his interview for “The Economist”, published on the second of May, Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence revealed Russian plans and suggested the expected period:
“The intelligence chief suggests Russia is gearing up for an assault around the Kharkiv and Sumy regions in the north-east. The timing of this depends on the sturdiness of Ukrainian defences in the Donbas, he says. But he assumes Russia’s main push will begin at the “end of May or beginning of June”, – wrote “The Economist” in the publication.
On the 5th of May ISW published the report, in which it was emphasized that The Russian military is reportedly preparing to operate in the Belgorod-Kharkiv operational direction. In addition, on the day when the new phase of the Russian invasion started, in his daily speech the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said:
“We understand the size of the occupier’s forces, we see their intentions. Our warriors, our artillery, our drones are retaliating against the occupier”.
Dmytro Barkar, the head of the Analytics Department and media expert at the Institute of Mass Information, monitored the telegram channels of Russian propagandists to determine their main ideas and intentions. He suggests that the narrative about the unpredictability is aimed particularly at the impact on foreigners, whereas to the Russian audience, propagandists deliver the opposite statement that the Russian side had warned the Ukrainian side about their intentions in the Kharkiv region.
Ukraine is out of resources to defend its territory
The main complication in preventing the Russian attack was the lack of necessary resources. Now, on the opposite, Ukraine received weapons from the USA after a long time of delay. The US Department of Defense announced 19 points of military supplement, among them are additional munitions for Patriot air defense systems and NASAMS, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles; additional HIMARS and ammunition; artillery rounds etc.
In its daily digest, the Center for Countering Disinformation dismissed this statement of the Russian government, assuring that Western aid is effective on the battlefield.
“The purpose of such statements is to create the illusion that the russian army has everything “under control, which is not true”, – wrote them.
Since the 31st of May, as US officials say, President Joe Biden permitted the use of American weapons on Russian territory in the Kharkiv region. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that in his opinion it is not escalation. Offensive also facilitated several decisions regarding aid to Ukraine in Europe.
“A dozen Western countries have recently partially or completely lifted restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western-provided weapons to strike military targets in Russian territory”, – mentioned ISW in their report.
Ukraine has not prepared the fortifications properly
Because of the closeness to the frontline Ukrainian army faced problems in building the fortification under constant attacks. At the same time, according to Dmytro Barkar’s research, Russian propaganda uses discrimination about incomplete fortifications, but at the same time justifies the failures of the Russian troops with a strong Ukrainian layered defense.
“Assault units are going deeper, but the enemy has built an echelon defense. Now the fighting is going on”, – reasoned one of the Russian telegram propagandists the stuck.
Ukrainian soldiers are massively surrendering
Currently, Russia has taken approximately 87.20 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory within this offensive, the heavy fighting continues in Vovchansk, which is located approximately 5 km distance from the Russian border. In contrast to this, the distance to Kharkiv, the regional center, which Russia set a target according to some of their publications, is around 73 km. It indicates the strong Ukrainian resistance. Moreover, now the offensive is considered as stopped. The representative of the Main Operational Department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Ihor Prokhorenko confirmed it on the briefing.
Dmytro Barkar shared the observation, that the information about the new prisoners of war is not verified:
“Some such messages were accompanied by videos, but there are no confirmations of their veracity, neither official nor from investigators, journalists or osinters.
It is also unclear where were they filmed and at what time. Moreover, it is not known for sure who the people on them are. In addition, the origin of the videos is not mentioned.
In addition, another interesting feature was noticed. These messages about the capture of Ukrainian soldiers from different propagandists on different telegram channels are identical. It is noticeable that there is a centralized method of their distribution. They are not transferred from one channel to another, but for some reason, even the texts of the comments on most of these videos are the same”.
Dmytro also doubted the word “massively” even in propagandists’ dimension:
“I would say about a certain number, but directly about the mass, there are more mass reports than mass capture. Several versions were mentioned, the maximum number I saw seems to be over 50 (prisoners).
Of course, this is a lot, but I would not say that it is massive. And it is without any confirmation”.
Dmytro also emphasized that on videos there were around 10 different people in total, whereas the number of 50 appeared only in the format of text.
The Ukrainian review also sent a request to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine with questions, aimed to clarify information about the offensive, and we would share the answers as soon as we receive them.
Russian soldiers are slightly equipped and the “real” attack has not started yet
“We haven’t started yet” is the universal phrase, used by Russia. It is not new in this context.
It was emphasized that it even began with the description of events as reconnaissance by combat. According to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by May 23, Russia had lost more than 100 soldiers within one day in the Kharkiv region.
Igor Romanenko, Ukrainian military officer, retired lieutenant general, candidate of military sciences, doctor of technical sciences, and professor commented the current amount of Russian troops in the radio NV news stream:
“They accumulate [reserves] as they can. There are already more than 50,000 [combatans] in this direction, and this quantitative indicator is important, of which more than 35,000 entered and are fighting on the territory of Ukraine (directions of Liptsi and Vovchansk). And they are trying to increase. The fact that role and importance of Kharkiv for Ukraine, for the conduct of hostilities is known. Putin’s sacral views of the city are also added”.
In the monitoring of Russian propagandists’ telegram channels, Dmytro Barkar emphasized the inconsistency of the statement of their propaganda machine. He assumed that the main line was not coordinated and there could be discrepancies even within one channel.
“In my opinion, which arose from the analysis and study of many posts of propagandists, is that they themselves do not know what they want to promote, what they want to claim, what they want to prove.
Starting from combat reconnaissance, ending with the capture of Kharkiv, and then they return again to the propaganda of the idea of creating a buffer zone”.
However, Dmytro revealed one ideological intention in this offensive:
“But it seemed to me that there was literally one post that revealed the real intentions, the real ideological, at least, the meaning of these actions. It was said that in the news, in reports about the war, new names of the Ukrainian settlements that are under attack, which are trying to be captured, appeared. Since the Russian audience is obviously tired of hearing about Maryinka, Avdiivka and Bakhmut”.
“In order to please the Russian consumer of propaganda with the imaginary successes of the Russian army, it was necessary to carry out this attack, so that in the news, new names were included in the summary of military operations, even though these are small villages.
It seemed to me that even the Kremlin, has somehow not proven the central line of propaganda in the sense of explanations the meaning of this offensive”.
Even though most of the Russian narratives are easily debunked, they still have an impact on the audience, since they are freely spread in the West, so it is critical to provide arguments to counteract. The message about the unpredictability of the offensive is completely false, other statements were manipulated. The lack of resources started being more actively eliminated by Ukrainian partners after the attack. Indeed it was hard to prepare proper fortifications on the first line, nevertheless, Russian propagandists still justify their tempos with a Ukrainian layered defense. There is no proof of the massive surrendering of Ukrainian soldiers and data shows that the scales of the Russian offensive were large.
Russian propaganda has shown the evident inconsistency of their thesis about the Kharkiv offense, so emphasizing their failures could facilitate the resistance to fakes.
By Daria Maslienkova
