Zelensky’s life of luxury, weaponized cow parsnip, and the nearing collapse of the West: 10 subjects for Kremlin propaganda hoaxes in 2024

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Russia's economic miracle

President Putin personally set the tone for this topic, announcing at a meeting with Far Eastern entrepreneurs in January that the Russian economy had become the largest in Europe and the fifth largest in the world. A closer look, however, reveals that Russia’s ostensible economic prowess is based on a very peculiar criterion: purchasing power parity (PPP). When analyzed in PPP terms, the economic performance of countries with low domestic prices ends up being overstated, and Russia's perceived “success” in this area is due almost entirely to the weakening ruble. Moreover, even within this parameter, Russia ranked 55th in the world by per capita GDP — below all EU countries except Bulgaria.

This reality did not stop state-owned news agency RIA Novosti from stating that the BRICS countries had outpaced the G7 in terms of their contribution to global GDP — and that the West was falling into a critical dependence on the BRICS. In dollar terms, the combined GDP of the five “old” BRICS members — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — was less than that of the U.S. alone, and the new members did not add much to it. The figures recalculated in PPP terms were somewhat more favorable to the alternative bloc, but since the global GDP implies goods entering the world market, what is the point of using a criterion focused on domestic prices?

At the Federation of Independent Trade Unions Congress in April, Putin claimed that his country's economy was developing in a balanced way, without shifting to a war footing. In reality, the military-industrial sector has been growing steadily while the rest of the economy has been treading water. Importantly, the military industry brings little benefit to the economy and does not create internal supply — hence the growth of inflation. To slow the rise in prices, the Central Bank has raised the key interest rate, and as a result, loans have become increasingly unaffordable.

At his annual marathon Q&A session in December, Putin said that inflation worries him, of course, but that wages in the country are outpacing it — so the situation is “stable and secure.” What he forgot to mention is that the prices of everyday goods are rising much faster than the official inflation rate, and the overall purchasing power of the population is on the decline.

The West is having a hard time without Russia

Kremlin propagandists have been saying for years that by imposing sanctions on Russia and losing access to cheap Russian fuel, Western countries have only punished themselves and are now facing hardship as a result. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in January that the Baltic states' proposal to ban Russian food imports to the EU would be a suicidal initiative for the EU's economy and that only American exporters would benefit from it. In reality, Russia's share in European imports of agricultural products is not so high that the rejection of Russian products could lead to serious consequences for the EU economy. However, even here, it is important to note that the EU did not completely ban food imports, but instead limited itself to imposing high duties.

In March, RIA Novosti published a piece covering a potential Western ban on imports of Russian aluminum and cited the contradictory prognoses of two experts — one who warned that prices would soar, and another who said they would plummet. The U.S. went ahead and banned Russian aluminum, while the EU did not. Global prices have changed little, and they remain well below the 2022 peak. Such a development was unsurprising considering that Russia's share of global aluminum smelting is 5.4%, against China's 58.3%.

Finally, in December, the same RIA Novosti announced that all “Eurobureaucrats in spasms of Russophobia” had managed to achieve was a rise in electricity prices and a decline in the standard of living, especially in Germany. Europe has indeed seen an increase in electricity prices, but electricity was significantly more expensive in 2021-2022 than it is now. Moreover, the rise in prices owes less to the curbing of Russian imports than to the “dark lull” that occurred when the generation of wind and solar energy simultaneously decreased due to weather conditions.

Statements that didn't happen

Kremlin propagandists' signature trick is to falsely attribute a statement to a Western opponent, then ridicule them over it. The past year has brought some vivid examples of the genre. In February, Maria Zakharova accused Ursula von der Leyen of falsely blaming Russia for inflicting hardship on European farmers by causing climate change. “I wonder if the Earth's axis is shifting at Moscow's behest, too?” Zakharova sneered. In truth, the head of the European Commission spoke about two problems: global warming and the war unleashed by Russia.

Tucker Carlson, a pro-Trump propagandist who has ingratiated himself with Kremlin media, also jumped in. In April, Carlson claimed that Boris Johnson had demanded nothing less than $1 million from him for an interview. In reality, Johnson agreed to the interview on the condition that Carlson donate his entire fee to Ukrainian charities. But after the news of Alexei Navalny's death came, Johnson declined the interview, deeming it unacceptable to deal with Carlson, who shortly before had been friendly with Putin. This was when Carlson threw in the allegations of extortion.

In April, Maria Zakharova pulled another trick, ridiculing U.S. President Joe Biden for allegedly claiming to look “not much older than 40.” In truth, the 81-year-old U.S. president said nothing about his appearance at all, and joked only about his age: “I know I'm only 40 years old... times two, plus one.”

Around the same time, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov misquoted Josep Borrell as saying: “We are not fighting for Ukraine but against Russia.” Meanwhile, the European foreign affairs representative said the exact opposite: “We are not fighting against Russia. We are defending Ukraine. And defending Ukraine means defending the international order based on rules. Otherwise, it will be the law of the jungle.”

In November, Florian Philippot, a great friend of the Kremlin and leader of The Patriots, a small-time French party, joined the chorus. He took umbrage at a statement by Volodymyr Zelensky, who allegedly called Western leaders “zeros” and “dummies.” Naturally, the Ukrainian president said nothing of the sort. Philippot came up with this insult after hearing Zelensky complain, in an interview with a South Korean TV channel, that the West offered “zero” response to the appearance of North Korean soldiers at the front.

In late November, Sergey Lavrov was enraged by a statement allegedly uttered by Admiral Rob Bauer, Chair of the NATO Military Committee. According to Lavrov, Bauer suggested “preemptively hitting targets in the Russian Federation that NATO believes could pose a threat to alliance members.” The Russian foreign minister complained that the alliance had “dropped all pretense of decency.” In reality, Bauer said NATO should be prepared to retaliate with precision strikes deep into the territory of an enemy that attacks it, and emphasized that weapons could only be used against Russia if it attacks any of the alliance’s members. The part about the pre-emptive strike was Lavrov's own invention.

On the same day, Channel One reported a sensational development: Josep Borrell allegedly suggested that in order to end the war, the West should stop helping Ukraine. In his speech before leaving office, Borrell actually called for doing more and acting faster to support Ukraine, and called ending support unacceptable because “Putin will not stop at Kyiv.”

In December, propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov “exposed” the insidious Western plot against Ukraine, presenting alleged “reports attributed to NATO” that spoke of dividing the country between Poland, Romania, Germany, and the UK. Kiselyov did not invent the plot but borrowed it from a famous Spanish anti-globalization publication, which, for its part, reprinted the article from an obscure Argentine website, where the information about the division of Ukraine was cited from a statement by Russia's own Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) — meaning Moscow’s spies were the primary source.

The luxurious life of “expired president” Zelensky

Naturally, the President of Ukraine remained in the spotlight of Russian fake news this past year. In May, RIA Novosti reported that one of the authors of Ukraine's constitution believed that Zelensky had lost his legitimacy when the five-year presidential term to which he was elected came to an end. In reality, Dmytro Tabachnyk, who voiced this idea, is not the author of the Constitution or even a lawyer. In 1994, as head of the administration of then-President Leonid Kuchma, Tabachnyk was a member of the Constitutional Commission, but was not part of the draft Constitution working group, which was composed exclusively of legal professionals. In Ukraine, Tabachnyk has been sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison for high treason and stripped of his citizenship. Moreover, his opinion on Zelensky's legitimacy is inconsistent with the Constitution, which does not explicitly prohibit holding elections under martial law but does not require holding them either. It says that martial law may lead to certain restrictions on the rights and freedoms of citizens and specifies which rights and freedoms may not be restricted under any circumstances. This latter list does not include the right to elect and be elected. Meanwhile, a separate law on the legal regime of martial law explicitly prohibits presidential elections.

In June, pro-government publication Argumenty i Fakty, followed by TASS, reported that Zelensky had bought a casino hotel in Northern Cyprus. They ostensibly found confirmation on the hotel's website, whose output data featured a company Zelensky had set up long ago — before the start of his political career. The website turned out to be fake, with its design copied from the hotel's real website, and it is now inaccessible. The hotel itself denied the validity of the story about the sale.

In July, All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK), Gazeta.ru, Lenta.ru, Argumenty i Fakty, MK, and others reported that Ukraine's First Lady, Olena Zelenska, had gone to Paris to buy the latest Bugatti model — priced at €4.5 million and not yet officially on sale. Creating this hoax took more than just a fake website. An entire fake French online publication called Vérité Cachée (“The Hidden Truth”) was set up, publishing AI-generated articles on a wide variety of topics. However, it was executed rather clumsily, and in several places, the “authors” even forgot to delete fragments of the prompt that had been fed into the neural network. The photo of the document ostensibly confirming the Ukrainian First Lady’s purchase of the car features two identical mistakes in the address of the car dealership. As could be expected, the fake media outlet is no longer available. However, the article featured an embedded video of a Bugatti dealership employee gushing with pride at having Ms. Zelenska among his clients. The video was a deepfake, created with a face from a photo bank.

After this masterpiece, the August reports by Channel One and other Kremlin-owned media about Zelensky's purchase of an Italian winery owned by the famous British musician Sting look amateurish. The hoax was planted via a pro-Kremlin Italian website that had not been updated for a year before. The winery manager, Sting's sister, vehemently denied any rumors about the sale.

Foreign mercenaries in Ukraine

Another favorite fake news topic is foreign mercenaries allegedly fighting on the side of Ukraine. In January, RIA Novosti published a “list of French mercenaries” who were in Kharkiv at the time of a Russian missile attack, which allegedly killed 60 of them. The hoax was so clumsily crafted that even Russian self-styled “war correspondents” debunked it.

Later, Russia's Ministry of Defense said a missile strike on Kharkiv had destroyed some kind of “temporary deployment site for foreign fighters,” mostly from France. The Russian Foreign Ministry even summoned the French ambassador in connection to the supposed event and insisted that “the deaths of his compatriots lie on the conscience of officials in Paris.” But there simply could not have been such a site in Kharkiv. Foreigners can serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine on a contractual basis, but their assembly and training base is located in the Lviv Region, from which they are distributed to different units. The AFU has no formations composed entirely of foreigners. And of course, the Russian armed forces also employ foreign servicemen, but for some reason, the Kremlin media do not call them mercenaries.

Russia's ambassador to France also jumped on the bandwagon, saying that mercenarism is illegal in France and alleging that the government in Paris looks the other way because the entire West is involved in a “proxy war.” He made the statement after being summoned to the French Foreign Ministry in connection with the death of two French nationals killed by Russian shelling while engaged in humanitarian work in Ukraine. Apparently, they were the ones he tried to declare to be “mercenaries,” but they are known to have engaged only in search and rescue work. A Russian drone hit their car despite the red cross emblem on the vehicle. To be clear, the AFU indeed counts among its rank French servicemen, and both countries permit contractual military service abroad. French law does not prohibit enlistment in foreign armed forces, but only participation in private military companies.

In April, RIA Novosti quoted a French aviation expert as saying that specific U.S.-based and Canadian private military companies were ostensibly going to pilot F-16s in Ukraine. These organizations do exist, but their contribution is limited to providing training for Ukrainian pilots. In addition, the American company plays the role of the mock enemy in Air Force exercises. The expert turned out to be a Moscow resident and a frequent guest of Russia Today, where he is presented as a “geopolitical analyst.”

In July, RIA Novosti, Vedomosti, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Lenta.ru, Vzglyad, and others cited a retired colonel of the Spanish army, who had allegedly spoken of dozens of British and French troops killed in Ukraine. More Frenchmen have purportedly died in Ukraine than in Algeria, and these were “not mercenaries, but soldiers of the French army,” he said. However, no names of the fallen were provided. Social media accounts circulated a photo of a funeral of French soldiers with military honors, claiming they had been killed in Ukraine, but it was actually a 2019 funeral for those killed in Mali. As it turned out, the author of this fake is an American conspiracy theorist who in 2009 claimed that there was a secret agreement by which China would seize part of American territory after the U.S. defaulted on its debt payments (which it never did).

Novel biological weapons and human experiments

The subject, which entered the propagandist media space before the full-scale war, has borne new fruit in the past year. In February, RIA Novosti reported that Western pharmaceutical companies in Mariupol were testing drugs on patients in the hospital's psychiatric ward — and even on newborn babies. Vesti cited an employee of the Kyiv branch of a major American pharmaceutical company as its source. But RIA journalists carelessly forgot to remove the clinical trial number from their piece about the psychiatric hospital, and it turned out that the trial had spanned 21 countries, including Russia, and was an international program conducted in full compliance with modern standards. Meanwhile, the story about experiments on babies was pure fiction, created, like many before it, via a fake media outlet called The Chicago Chronicle — a real newspaper that closed down in 1907. The “pharmaceutical company employee” who appeared in the Vesti story was wearing a medical mask, a headscarf, and protective goggles, so it was impossible to identify her. The company stated that they had never had an employee by her name.

In the same month, MPs from United Russia said while considering a bill to combat cow parsnip that the spread of this toxic weed in Russia was “part of a bacteriological war” unleashed by the U.S. However, it was Soviet authorities who acclimatized this Caucasian plant to Russia's moderate climate to use as livestock fodder — but it turned out to be making the milk bitter. According to one of the versions, Joseph Stalin himself came up with the idea of feeding livestock with cow parsnip, and in Poland, this plant was even dubbed “Stalin's revenge.”

February saw a host of fake news on biomedical topics. Toward the end of the month, Sergei Shoigu, then Minister of Defense, said in a ministerial board meeting that the U.S. had created a network of biological labs to study region-specific pathogens that could be transmitted to humans and could trigger pandemics — and that Ukraine was home to 40 out of 330 such facilities. As it turned out, he was paraphrasing a Chinese diplomat from two years before, who spoke of 26 laboratories in Ukraine and cited the Russian military as his source. The new estimate of the number of Ukrainian labs was probably borrowed from a U.S. Department of Defense fact sheet that mentions U.S. support for 46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories and medical facilities.

In September, Vyacheslav Nikonov, the host of the “Bolshaya Igra” discussion show on Channel One, invited experts who asserted that Ukraine hosted bio labs that enjoyed the status of diplomatic facilities and studied Slavic genotypes in order to create “genetic weapons.” The possibility of such bioweapons selectively acting on members of a certain ethnic group is an old myth that even RIA Novosti refuted seven years ago.

Drafting the disabled

The mass mobilization in Ukraine has inspired Kremlin propagandists to launch a series of fake stories about the AFU forcibly drafting even the disabled and seriously ill. In August, TASS, Vesti, and many others spread a story about a disabled Odesa resident who had been mobilized despite suffering from dementia. For some reason, no mention of this story was found in the Ukrainian segment of the Internet, and the image of the draft notice featured in the story differed from the standard template. The source turned out to be the Telegram channel of an infamous Ukrainian MP who once picked a fight in the Odesa City Council and was expelled from the pro-presidential faction.

In October, RIA Novosti showed an interview with a Ukrainian prisoner of war who said that the AFU purportedly drafted amputees — and who even named two brigades where all such fighters are deployed. The allegation is absurd, especially considering that these brigades are engaged in the most intense fighting in the Donetsk region. Naturally, disabled persons with an amputated hand or foot are exempt from the draft.

In December, RIA Novosti circulated a statement by another Ukrainian POW alleging that even epileptic patients were being mobilized. Surprisingly, this turned out to be true: not all those who have been diagnosed with epilepsy are exempted from mobilization — only patients who have frequent seizures or show signs of mental disorders. This is no different from the practice adopted in Russia, where such recruits can be mobilized provided that they suffer fewer than five seizures per year.

Ukrainian involvement in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack

This past March, five days after the tragedy at Moscow's Crocus City Hall, RT attempted to declare as fake the Islamic State address in which the terrorist group takes responsibility for the attack. The RT piece claims that the statement was circulated on behalf of the IS-affiliated Amaq agency, which had allegedly ceased functioning and had been replaced by another agency, Nasheer. In fact, the opposite is true: the latest Nasheer post was published in 2021, while Amaq reported an IS attack in Syria in 2023.

Foreign “analysts” doing the Kremlin's bidding — a small, motley crew that includes a “military expert” who was once convicted in the U.S. for illegally wearing military uniforms and fraudulently obtaining an office apartment on a military base — also began to speak out about the Ukrainian connection. The fakespert managed to discern not only Ukraine's involvement, but even that of the CIA, MI6, and Mossad. None of the so-called experts presented any evidence other than their own conjectures, probably prompted by their Russian handlers. One of them earnestly argued that the terrorists trying to escape in the southwestern direction meant that “the arrow of their compass” pointed to Ukraine, although they had in fact been traveling towards the Belarusian border.

In April, Nikolai Patrushev, then secretary of Russia's Security Council, accused the Ukrainian Embassy in Dushanbe of recruiting militants for the attack — this despite the confessions of the arrested attackers, all Tajik nationals, who said they'd been recruited through IS-affiliated Telegram channels. Two had received instructions in Turkey, and the others had been found and recruited in Russia. What the embassy in Dushanbe may have had to do with this is unclear, considering that none of the individuals had lived in their homeland in the period leading up to the attack. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian ambassador to Tajikistan had previously served as head of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service, which piqued Patrushev's suspicion.

An April statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry purported to expose a “PR campaign” staged by Western media and officials aimed at denying Ukraine's involvement in the attack. The press had allegedly received “a prohibition, in strongest terms, of covering the true scale of the tragedy: mentioning the casualty toll, the number of dead children, or demonstrating the reaction of ordinary citizens to what happened.” In reality, all major Western publications wrote about the death toll and the spontaneous memorial that emerged near the burnt-out concert hall, and even mentioned the Russian authorities' version of Ukraine's involvement — but dismissed it as implausible.

Versions of Alexei Navalny's death

When Alexei Navalny was reported dead in a high-security penal colony in the Far North, Russian officials and media immediately began to muddy the waters with contradictory versions, trying to create uncertainty. TASS even changed the initial date of death in its report. Officially, Navalny is believed to have lost consciousness and died on Feb. 16, 2024, but one of his fellow inmates said that something extraordinary had happened in the colony the day before, though he did not know what. In light of this, a major publication changing the date in its report a few minutes after posting looks suspicious.

Telegram channel Baza reported that Navalny felt ill during a walk at around 1 p.m. local time on Feb. 16, but did not take into account that Navalny was in a punishment cell, where the daily routine is different and walks take place early in the morning.

According to RT, the cause of Navalny's death was a blood clot that broke off. However, medical professionals immediately pointed out that making such a diagnosis would have required either a lifetime instrumental examination, which the colony did not have the means to perform, or an autopsy — but RT's report preceded the autopsy. The doctor who examined Navalny in 2020 in Omsk after he was poisoned claimed the politician had no risk factors for pulmonary embolism.

For several days after Navalny’s death, the authorities refused to hand over his body or even to show it to his mother, saying that the investigation would continue for at least two weeks and would include some kind of chemical examination. What it was for, no one explained, as none of the officials mentioned poisoning as a possible cause of death. Whatever sort of examination takes 14 days to complete remains a mystery.

Vladimir Solovyov suggested that Navalny's death may have been the result of actions by Western intelligence services — a futile attempt to disrupt Russia's presidential election. How they could have infiltrated the colony in the remote northern town of Kharp and killed an inmate, Solovyov did not explain.

Historical discoveries by propagandists

Kremlin officials and propagandists have a particularly reverent attitude towards history, and the past year has provided several striking cases of its rewriting for the sake of ideology. The tone was set by Vladimir Putin, who told a dumbfounded Tucker Carlson this past February that Ukrainians are a part of the Russian people, having undergone Polonization after the union of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland in the 13th century and that they were called Ukrainians due to the fact that they lived on the eastern edge (okraina) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In fact, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth appeared only in the 16th century. The term “Ukrainians” emerged in the late 17th century and was associated with the word krai — not in the sense of “periphery”, but in the sense of “country” or “region” (kraina is the modern Ukrainian for “country”).

Putin also said that Hitler had been forced to start World War II due to Poland refusing to give it the Danzig Corridor — the Baltic Sea coast between the main part of Germany and East Prussia. In reality, Germany had no rights to these territories, which indeed held Danzig (now Gdansk), a major city with a predominantly German population surrounded by countryside inhabited mostly by Poles. Had the “corridor” been lost, Poland would have forfeited its access to the sea.

Putin used the occasion to repeat his old and long-exposed fake that Ukraine owes its statehood to Vladimir Lenin.

In April, propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov in his “Vesti Nedeli” weekly news digest quoted the so-called “Durnovo note” from 1914, in which the former interior minister of the Russian Empire warned Nicholas II about the danger of an alliance with “our geopolitical adversary” Great Britain against Germany. Historians doubt the authenticity of the note. In particular, they are alarmed that a text intended for the Emperor does not address him by his full title, which would have been hard to imagine at the time. More importantly, the text of the note has long been published, and the paragraph quoted by Kiselyov was not in it. Moreover, the term “geopolitical adversary” did not even exist in 1914, as the whole concept of geopolitics was not formed until several years later.

In the same month, the press secretary of the Kaliningrad governor made a bold statement, which Vesti and RIA Novosti proudly presented as a comeuppance to Federal Chancellor Scholz himself. In response to the chancellor's words that Russia seeks to appropriate Kant and his works (despite his ideas being incompatible with Russia's position on Ukraine), the spokesman said that Scholz had had no right to cite Kant, as the great philosopher had died as a Russian subject. In truth, Kant was listed as a Russian subject for four years while Russia held Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) after capturing it. To continue teaching at the university, Kant had to swear allegiance to Empress Elizabeth. When the city was returned to Prussia, Kant again became a Prussian subject. According to his contemporaries, the philosopher spoke unflatteringly of the Russians and called them his main enemies.

In May, Nikita Mikhalkov, in his program “Besogon TV,” outlined an unexpected version of the death of Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich, son and heir apparent of Ivan the Terrible: he did not die at his father's hands, but was poisoned by the boyars — “the oligarchy of the XVI century.” In confirmation, Mikhalkov cites the study of the remains of the Tsarevich, which found no confirmation of the skull injury but revealed traces of arsenic. In reality, Ivan Ivanovich's skull had been almost destroyed by groundwater by the 20th century, when the study took place — only a fragment of his lower jaw was preserved. Meanwhile, arsenic in those days was used in some medicines.

In May, St. Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov said that the city owes its existence to Peter the Great's wife. The tsar was supposedly surrounded by skeptics who did not believe in his plan, but the wife said: “Petrusha, we will build this city.” As sweet as the legend is, when St. Petersburg was founded in 1703, Peter I had no wife. His first wife, Yevdokia Lopukhina, had been sent to a monastery five years earlier, and he did not marry Marta Skowrońska, who would become Empress Catherine I, until nine years later. In addition, according to historians, Catherine I was not interested in state affairs during Peter the Great's lifetime.

On the occasion of U.S. Independence Day in July, Dmitry Medvedev compared Civil War-era America to Russia and Ukraine, as the belligerents had incompatible sets of values: while the Northerners believed in “equality, liberty, and one law for all,” the Southerners displayed “inhuman, slumbering racism.” This idealization of northerners is historically inaccurate. They opposed slavery because plantation owners in the South needed slave labor more than industrialists in the North — but that doesn't mean there was no racism in the Northern states. Back in the mid-20th century, there were cities in which African-Americans were allowed to be present only during the day and had to leave the city before sundown. In 1944, White public transportation workers in Philadelphia went on strike to protest the authorities' decision to allow Blacks to work as bus drivers. And the Pentagon building, under construction in the 1940s, had twice as many toilets as sanitary standards required — so that there would be separate facilities for white and black staff members. It took a special order from President Roosevelt to abolish “toilet segregation.” In addition, Medvedev stated that “the same foreign scoundrels as today — England and France, as usual — brazenly and unceremoniously interfered in the course of events, wishing victory to the South. They supported the slave owners just as they are now helping, along with the modern-day U.S., the Nazi regime in Kyiv.” In reality, Britain and France did not intervene in the course of the Civil War, maintaining neutrality and preserving economic relations with both sides.