According to “Television of Toronto”, the Russians have launched a campaign to discredit the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called “Black hole Zelensky”. Primitive fake videos are supposed to convince the audience that Ukraine, led by its president, is a black hole sucking out Western financial aid.
The NSDC of Ukraine claims that the campaign to disrupt financial support from allies began as early as the summer of 2022. A coordinated Russian information campaign seeks to influence public opinion to reduce the amount of financial and military aid.
Since June, messages have been circulating in the network of Russian Telegram channels that the funds allocated to Ukraine from the EU and the USA are being misappropriated. A little later, the allegory with a black hole was used for the first time, and Russian propagandists liked that one very much. From October 2022, the aggressor started actively creating fakes on this topic.
Andriy Shapovalov, acting head of the Center for Countering Disinformation of the NSDC, reports that Russian fakes are being spread through a network of pseudo-experts. The center has already identified about 400 such persons and is monitoring their statements. Russia also backs its Ukrainian network of agents who disseminate Kremlin narratives on embezzlement, thus aiming to discredit the political establishment in order to trigger inner turmoil and tilt social sentiments. Among them is Geo Leros, who is being prosecuted. The CCD of the NSDC prepared a detailed report on the malign activity of the Russian Federation and handed it over to the partner countries.
“Black Hole” is a large-scale PsyOp in which thousands of actors are involved and which is coordinated in several centers in the Russian Federation. – Shapovalov said.
The pattern of disinformation campaign is as follows: the video first appears on a dubious Western resource, and then Russian propaganda media spread this news among themselves. Fake videos are often labeled with “icons” of well-known foreign media or digitally alter existing reports to give disinformation credibility and persuasiveness. However, the primary source that refers to such fake videos is usually not the authoritative channel itself, but some Telegram channel, for example. Similarly, propagandists make fake covers of top-ranking foreign media and even fake street graffiti. The campaign also spread fake news on Zelensky’s wife spending money.
Andriy Shapovalov admitted in an interview that disinformation countermeasures specialists noted the considerable audacity of Russian propaganda, because this specific campaign on the topic of the “black hole” focused on spreading only fake information and content.