Truth Under Fire







Four people, two different sides: Olga and Anna from Ukraine, Christina and Olesia from Russia. They are in Austria now, but actively following the war in their home countries via different sources. Especially on social media it is difficult to distinguish real facts from propaganda and fake news. So how do they know what’s the truth?









Fake news

is considered to be a significant problem that faces global society and the way it functions. An impressive amount of attention has been given to this issue. This project attempts to highlight the role of fakes and disinformation in the modern world and the way it affects people’s opinions. Fake news are reports, articles, postings or videos with incorrect information, which are mostly spread on the Internet. This is particularly common in social media such as Facebook or Twitter. Most of the time, these are very lurid and exciting reports.





Most spread Russian propaganda

1. “Because of NATO’s aggressive expansion, Russia is now ‘encircled by enemies’ and needs to defend itself.”

The fact is that no country or alliance is plotting to invade Russia. No one is threatening Russia. In fact, the EU and Ukraine are staunch supporters of the established European security order. Remember that Russia is the world’s largest country by geography with a population of more than 140 million and has one of the largest armed forces in the world with the highest number of nuclear weapons. It is not accurate to portray Russia as a country under acute military threat. In terms of geography, less than one sixteenth of Russia’s land border is with NATO members. Of the 14 countries Russia borders, only five are NATO members.



2. “Ukraine will use chemical, nuclear and other prohibited weapons against civilians in Donbas.”

The fact is that Ukraine has never produced, stockpiled or used chemical weapons. Putin is likely referring to a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Munich Security Conference last February. In it, Zelenskyy mentions the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which ensures that the sovereignty and national borders of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan are respected vis-à-vis the signatory states that include the US, UK and Russia. In exchange, Ukraine handed over its nuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia or partially destroyed them. Since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 violated Ukrainian sovereignty, Zelenskyy hinted in Munich that he would withdraw from the agreement.



3. “Ukraine is conducting genocide against the Russian-speaking population in the East.”

In reality, there is no evidence that Russian-speaking or ethnic Russian residents in eastern Ukraine face persecution – let alone genocide — at the hands of Ukrainian authorities. This has been confirmed in reports published by the Council of Europe, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the OSCE. Such claims have been unequivocally debunked by independent Russian media, among others. None of the multiple reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine, which are regularly published by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, or the reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine come even close to referencing genocide in Ukraine.



4. “There is no war in Ukraine, only ‘special military operation’.”

The narrative of a “special military operation” thus uses the language of policing, not of genuine military confrontation. Note the resemblance in the Russian way of naming the use of its armed forces: “operation on the restoration of the constitutional order in Chechnya” (the First Chechen War), “counter-terrorist operation on the territory of Northern Caucasus region” (the Second Chechen War), “peace enforcement operation” (the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008), and now “special military operation.” Russia does not fight wars, it conducts “operations,” because wars can only be fought with equals.