A second battlefield
is becoming           
        increasingly
important:      
                   THE FIGHT
FOR TRUST

Ukrainian actors are supposedly staging a Russian attack on the civilian population in Ukraine. At least that's what the Russian Embassy in Madrid claims in a tweet:

Si las atrocidades de los militares rusos no existen, deben ser inventadas. Tomas escenificadas de civiles que huyen de ‘la agresión’ rusa en Gostomel.

If the atrocities of the Russian military
do not exist, they must be invented
                                                                   , it says.

The video went viral with more than 1.2 million views. The video is actually a film production but it's quite different from what is depicted: It shows in fact actors shooting scenes for the Ukrainian war movie Region of Heroes, which is being produced in the Kyiv suburb of Hostomel, among other places.

As the war in Ukraine continues, a second battlefield is becoming increasingly important: the fight for trust. Let's take a look at some examples.

^[1] On Russian prime time state television, the Russian Duma deputy Alexandr Borodaj claims:

NATO troops are fighting in Ukraine. They are regular troops. Our troops have met state Polish special forces, that has become clear.

FALSE. Poland has repeatedly denied such claims. This move would have high stakes. It would mean Poland – and therefore NATO – would have entered the war, marking a significant escalation. A spokesperson for the Polish Ministry of Defense wrote in response to a DW query: This is absurd fake news. Russia has not provided any authentic evidence of Polish units fighting in Ukraine. All the evidence they provided was false, like an alleged order from the top Polish army general to mobilize, which was found by several international fast checkers to be photoshopped.

^[2] Russia's propaganda is by no means intended to influence only the Russian population; many fakes are aimed at an international audience, like an alleged DW News video reporting on a criminal refugee from Ukraine named Petro Savchenko, who is said to have blackmailed dozens of german women. The video claims he would publish pornographic pictures of the women recorded with a hidden camera after he met them in bars.

The video is fake, it is not a DW's production. The font used does not correspond to DW's design standards. The name Petro Savchenko does not lead to any corresponding hits when searching online and no media reported on the alleged incident, which is unrealistic in such a case. The video was professionally created – and experts believe it was produced by Russian troll factories.

Videos like this one are called SPOOFING – which is when a digital identity is faked in order to gain credibility. And this has happened to other media outlets as well.

^[3] A video looking like a BBC production went viral after the Russian missile attack on the Kramatorsk train station in Ukraine. It claims that this crashed missile was fired by Ukrainian troops at their own population. The BBC immediately objected, calling the video fake. BBC producer Joe Inwood, who covered the missile attack for the BBC, claimed in a tweet:

I can confirm the video is FAKE.
They do appear to have gotten hold of
our branding, however, so I'm worried
we will see more of these.

Here, the design was copied - but some Internet users thought it was real.

It’s like trying to build trustworthiness. So basically, Telegram channels say that “Hey, if you don't trust or like Russian media, here is the BBC telling you the same”.

So basically, it's an external validation of the things that they are trying to promote and amplify.
– Roman Osadchuck
(Digital Forensic Expert)

Russia's propaganda campaign is trying to justify the war and its consequences to a Russian audience by portraying the West as inferior – and lately, we've seen a shift towards new topics like the energy crisis in Europe and the sanctions against Russia.

^[4] A Russian state television report showed a food bank in Germany whose number of customers has doubled since the war began. It is also claimed that Germans link the decline in their standards of living to the sanctions against Russia. The original video was found to be from the Bavarian Broadcasting Company about the food bank in Nuremberg. It does report increased demand at the food bank as a result of increased inflation due to the war, but no word about the sanctions against Russia.

Some things are only slightly changed or taken out of context. ^[5] Others are freely invented and are almost comical like the claim from Russian state television, which states that bacteria, scabies, mites, fleas, and even lice are spreading in Europe right now because people don't wash because of the energy crisis. The anchor says:

Europe is rolling back
to the Middle Ages.

Neither at the national level nor in the data of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, do we find any vague evidence to support this wild claim.

For parasitic mites, lice and flee infestation, we are not aware of any significant increase in the EU.
                            – Tamas Bakonyi
(Expert for infectious diseases, ECDC)

^[6] Probably the most remarkable misstatement of this war, however, comes from the Russian president himself.

Vladimir Putin claimed:

            The Russian army does
not attack civilian targets.

However, this statement is in stark contrast to the reality: the massacres in Bucha, the bombing of the Mariupol hospital, the use of cluster bombs in Kharkiv – the list of attacks on civilians is long and the cases well documented. THE FACTS CONTRADICT PUTIN.

Source:[11]