Deepfakes and Misinformation: Russia’s old but renewed playbook!
As Ukraine continues to bomb the Russian border region of Kursk in a “surprise incursion” with missiles and drones to move deeper into the mainland, the Kremlin is not just using its military might but also its specialized psychological operations juggernaut to push back and attempt to demoralize Ukrainian forces and allies by discrediting and accusing them of war crimes.
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) is using Ukraine’s Kursk operation to “baselessly accuse” Kyiv’s soldiers of committing war crimes, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a Telegram post.
“For this purpose, the Russian side creates and distributes various fakes and misinformation that have nothing to do with reality,” the SBU said. Disinformation and PsyOps is employed as a last resort when the probability of countering the offensive actions of the enemy’s armed forces diminishes, the Ukrainian defenders said.
Russia’s Propaganda Playbook: Fake Testimonies and Staged War Crimes
These fakes are based on made up “testimonies of local witnesses” and interrogations of “Ukrainian prisoners of war,” Kovalenko said. “The enemy has no evidence to support these claims and resorts to manipulation and lies.”
The SBU expects the Russian special services to stage war crime acts in coming days, in particular against the civilian population of the Kursk region, in order to later accuse the Ukrainian side of committing them. A UN-backed investigation had earlier accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine, but Putin had vehemently refuted these claims even after a Russian soldier confessed to executing a civilian.
Kyiv claimed to have evidence of Moscow using creative agencies and theater studios – that are secretly funded by the Russian Ministry of Defense – to produce fake content supposedly from Ukrainian-occupied territories. CCD has previously documented multiple fake videos involving actors posing as Ukrainian soldiers, produced by the “Krylya” studio, which it links to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
PsyOps Objectives
The objective of these PsyOps of the Russian propaganda engine is to distract the international community from Russian crimes in Ukraine and provide a basis for new accusations against Kyiv, Kovalenko said.
Another fake news report that Russia was found spreading on Wednesday, according to the CCD, is that of Ukrainians targeting churches in Kursk region.
These claims are solely based on statements from the clergy of the remarkably pro-Kremlin Russian orthodox church, who alleged that Ukrainian forces destroyed the Church of the Ascension and the Gornal St. Nicholas Belogorskiy Monastery. “There is no credible evidence to back up these accusations,” the CCD said.
“In reality, Ukrainian forces strictly follow international law and do not commit acts of violence against non-combatants. The enemy’s daily accusations against the Ukrainian Armed Forces are pure disinformation and manipulation aimed at discrediting Ukraine on the world stage.” – Center for Countering Disinformation
But why spread disinformation about destruction of churches, one may wonder. Well, this is to incense Russia’s right-wing supporters in the West, according to the CCD. “The fakes about Ukrainians destroying churches are mainly aimed at a Western audience, especially in the U.S., where religious persecution is a particularly sensitive issue ahead of the presidential election,” the CCD explained.
The Security Service of Ukraine warns that such attempts are futile and will not affect either the offensive actions of the Armed Forces or the opinion of the country’s international partners.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield in Kursk, Ukraine has further advanced into Russia, Zelensky said, as his troops offensive entered second week. Russia seems to be caught off guard and sent scrambling as another Russian border region, Belgorod, declared a regional emergency.
Russia made claims of retaliation but with nearly 200,000 Russians evacuated, the Kremlin has much to worry about “one of the biggest incursions into Russia in decades.”
