How Russia used Brit for propaganda

Russian state media, pro-war Telegram channels, bot accounts on X, and Facebook pages are spreading claims that it was allegedly reported "in the UK" that since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have lost 1.8 million personnel in combat.

This is fake. The source of this claim is a post on X by a man calling himself a journalist and blogger, Warren Thornton. He has a paid X account, a YouTube channel with only about 2,000 subscribers, and a banned TikTok account.

In his post about Ukrainian military losses, he cites only unnamed sources in Ukraine and provides no evidence whatsoever.

After reviewing his posts on X, Ukrinform's fact-checking team concluded that Warren Thornton is simply a Russian propagandist. He spreads various falsehoods about Ukraine and posts images of the Russian flag under claims that Russian forces have allegedly captured the city of Chasiv Yar.

In October 2023, police in Bristol arrested Thornton and charged him with spreading fake news and disinformation against Ukraine. For this offense, the pro-Russian blogger paid a fine and spent one day in pre-trial detention.

As Ukrinform previously reported, Russian propaganda had earlier spread a fake claiming that Ukraine's war losses exceeded one million.

Andriy Olenin