Last week, the Russian media wrote a lot about countries on the unfriendly list. Traditionally, France was in the propaganda lens. Disinformers cannot forgive Macron`s statement about the hypothetical deployment of foreign troops to Ukraine. They wrote about hostile Finland. Finns are accused of disliking "people from the East" and Russians. The propaganda claims that Finland's industry is collapsing because of the conflict with Russia, and reminds us that the country was once part of the Russian Empire. They also mentioned Kyrgyzstan. Propaganda attacked the country after it restricted the use of the Russian payment system Mir. They claim that there is nothing to do in Kyrgyzstan except eat pilaf. In fact, the country's budget will now be left without money, as labor migrants in Russia will not be able to replenish it.Читати українськоюRead about this and more in the new issue of our monitoring of Russian state media and manipulative websites that target Russian disinformation.

Last week, the Russian media discussed whether the death penalty should be brought back to Russia. The propaganda lamented that criminals should be severely punished rather than allowed to live in warm Russian prisons.Читати українськоюAlso, after the terrorist attack in Crocus, there was talk of the need to tighten migration policy. And while Ukraine is accused of the terrorist attack in statements, Tajiks face physical violence. Russian law enforcement agencies have joined the anti-immigration hysteria. They even discussed the need to introduce a visa regime with Central Asian countries. We have also seen another surge in the information campaign against the Armenian leadership. Nikol Pashinyan joins the club of "Russophobes" and "traitors" to the Russian people.Read about this and more in the new issue of our monitoring of Russian state media and manipulative websites that target Russian disinformation.

The terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall was the biggest news on Russian media last week. As soon as the first reports hit the Internet, it was clear that Russian propagandists were determined to blame Ukraine. It was as if the disinformers were running a creativity contest with just one task: connect Kyiv to the terrorist attack in any way possible.Читати українськоюMargarita Simonyan, the top propagandist and the RT editor-in-chief, hurried to tweet it was the unbrotherly Ukrainians: “All evidence points to the fact that the attack was planned by our not-quite-brothers”. Former president now blogger Dmitry Medvedev called to kill the Ukrainian leadership: “All those people must be found and eliminated as terrorists without mercy including the top officials of the state that launched such an atrocious attack”.The accusations remained even after ISIS terrorists had claimed responsibility for the attack. The disinformers argued that it was Ukraine’s tactic to shift responsibility onto Islamists.According to Russian media, the United States might also had a hand in the incident: they warned about the terrorist attack which appears suspicious. Moreover, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova believes that Washington is using ISIS to undermine America’s competitors.This monitoring report covers these and other topics of the disinformation spread by Russian state media and online parajournalists to manipulate public opinion.

The benefits of studying disinformation on YouTubeYouTube is one of the most popular social media in Poland and Ukraine: two-thirds of the people in each country have an active account and use the platform to watch entertainment and informational content. The recommendation algorithm is the heart of YouTube: personalized, high-quality selections of similar videos keep viewers on the platform to maximize advertising profits and help users find videos of interest more easily.Читати українською

Russian media have been claiming that Ukraine is losing the war for almost two years now, and last week’s reports were no exception. Such claims are being supported by the news of unclear prospects of continuing Western aid to Ukraine. The issue has been causing considerable internal disagreement both in the USA and within the EU. The AFU are experiencing ammunition shortages. According to the propaganda, all the above means that victory is just around the corner. Читати українською

outube has long earned the reputation of a convenient and reliable service. Two out of three Ukrainians come here for entertainment and educational content, but they also use it to watch the news and follow the twists and turns of Ukraine's political life. The recommendation algorithm is the “heart” of YouTube. In a nutshell, the better recommendations the platform offers, the more time its users spend watching videos and the more money they bring to the advertisers by watching their adverts.

In November, many Ukrainian trashy websites published mysterious forecasts and esoteric insights. They spread predictions by Wolf Messing, Baba Vanga as well as the modern breed of Ukrainian psychics and mentalists.

There has been a considerable increase in the number of sources being analyzed. For example, this monitoring report contains the results of the automatic processing of approximately 400,000 news items.

At the end of October 2022, we published a data project about the Russian "Telegram occupation", in which we investigated 120 Telegram channels that were set up by the Russians under the guise of Ukrainian local news channels to prepare for and justify the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territories. However, things didn’t turn out as planned, and by the end of September 2022, almost half of these news channels stopped working. As we learnt later on, not forever. Some Telegram channels still got a chance for a second life, although again, not for long. More details about Russian activity in Telegram and what Soledar offensive has got to do with it – in the article below.