The recent series of strikes on military installations in Crimea caught Russian propagandists by surprise. No matter how hard they tried to ignore the elephant in the room, their denial strategy failed so they had to improvise. This monitoring report debunks the lies spread by Russian state media and online parajournalists to manipulate public opinion.

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant conundrum was all over the headlines of the Russian propagandist media last week. The Russians also moaned about derussification in Ukraine, lashed out at their Baltic neighbours and praised Uzbek-made refrigerators. This monitoring report debunks these and other lies spread consummately by Russian state media and online parajournalists to manipulate public opinion.

Water supply to Crimea became one of Russia’s most impactful propaganda messages to justify its aggression against Ukraine.It’s worth noting that in 2014, Ukraine stopped the water supply to Crimea through the North Crimean Canal. Previously, the canal covered 80-85% of all the freshwater needs of the peninsula, but it was mostly used for growing rice in the north of Crimea. After the Russian occupation, this business stopped, so the need for water decreased.However, the slogan "water for Crimea" became a propaganda meme, and Russian occupiers didn’t wait too long to announce the restoration of the water supply – or, more precisely, the beginning of full-scale theft of water from the Dnipro river. Translated by Dmitry Lytov, Mike Lytov, and Tetiana Sykes

Activists, volunteers, human rights defenders and media have launched a campaign demanding the resignation of Amnesty International's senior leadership after the organisation published controversial and incompetent report on Ukrainian fighting tactics (you can sign the petition here). Civil rights activist and ‘Gender in Detail’ editor-in-chief Tamara Zlobina explains what may be wrong with similar to Amnesty International's organisations and why Amnesty's leadership must step down. See the original text below.

Almost from the very beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russian disinformers continuously spread fakes about Ukraine selling West-supplied weapons. However, since these stories didn't resonate well with Western audiences, Russia has recently backed up their disinformation spews with the "real evidence base".

Russian disinformers continue to devote every third piece of news to the war and its consequences for Russia. And we analyze the news of Russian websites and review what the enemy is telling its own population about the attack against Ukraine. For this purpose, we analyzed almost 22 000 news items from Russian state media and manipulative websites that purposefully spread Russian propaganda.

In response to our project "A Wall of Fire. What Projectiles Hit the Ukrainian Positions and How", we received a letter from our reader who serves in the artillery. We publish his reaction below as it contains a lot of interesting facts.

Russia periodically launches missile strikes on objects in Ukraine from the territory of the Caspian Sea. The sources of these strikes are both ships from the Caspian Fleet, which carry Kalibr cruise missiles, and Tu-95 and Tu-160 heavy bombers, which launch Kh-101 and Kh-555 cruise missiles on Ukraine’s territory while "barraging" over the Caspian waters.

In the past 10 days, there has been a significant increase in the number of Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s rear military positions. Ukraine troops are now actively using HIMARS (High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) supplied by Western allies. They are believed to be the modern analogues of the Soviet Uragan and Smerch fire systems.

Reporter Gian Micalessin heads to occupied Melitopol and passes some Russian combat vehicles on the way, all marked with a large letter Z. In the city, he cheerfully poses near billboards erected by the occupiers on the eve of Victory Day, and says that the appearance of the city has changed since the Russians decorated it with symbols of the Soviet Union and images of their heroes.