Russia launches disinformation campaign over Ukraine's Kursk operation

Russia spreads false claims about the Kursk operation

Russian propagandists are attempting to discredit Ukraine's Defense Forces while spreading unsubstantiated accusations of crimes against civilians.

Pro-Kremlin Z-channels are promoting narratives about:

• The Russian army's "heroic battles" that allegedly lasted nine months;
• Its "extraordinary courage" in confronting what they describe as a "vastly superior enemy force."

"At the same time, these narratives contradict the propagandists' own information behavior in August 2024. At the start of the operation, most of them effectively remained silent about the events," Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) said.

Propagandists accuse Ukraine's Defense Forces

At the same time, Russian propaganda has intensified a campaign accusing Ukrainian troops of allegedly terrorizing civilians in Russia's Kursk region.

"Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova claimed that the whereabouts of around 300 residents of the region remain unknown. However, the Russian side has provided no verified evidence to support these claims," the CCD said.

According to the center, the goals of these manipulative narratives are to:

• Create a distorted perception of events;
• Glorify Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.

The CCD stressed that Russian propaganda continues to ignore the fact that Ukraine and its citizens have been subjected to daily Russian terror for more than five years.

Earlier, RBC-Ukraine reported that Russian propaganda had circulated a false claim alleging that Ukraine was selling weapons and attack drones to the Italian mafia.

Russian propaganda has also spread fabricated reports claiming that a Kyiv higher education institution was recruiting students for Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces. In reality, no Ukrainian university is conducting such a campaign.