In the hierarchy of narratives of Russian propaganda, messages about mobilization in the right-bank part of the Kherson region occupy an extremely important place. Thus, recently hostile media fabricated the creation in the region of a separate «battalion» that allegedly would help TRC employees carry out their duties. The head of the Kherson OVA, Oleksandr Prokudin, supposedly even handed several vehicles over to the «people-catchers», however, of course, all these stories turned out to be outright lies.
The authors of the propagandist Telegram channel «Free Kherson» report about the new «battalion».
«In Russian-occupied Kherson region the authorities have begun forming new battalions. Their main task is to help the TRCs conduct a harsh, violent mobilization of the local population. For this purpose the so-called head Prokudin handed them three armored vehicles. “To the last Ukrainian”, as they themselves like to say», – note the hostile media.
As evidence of their words, the Russians cite a corresponding photo in which Oleksandr Prokudin hands vehicles to people in uniform. The photo is genuine, but in it the head of the OVA is replenishing the vehicle fleet not of some invented «battalion», but of local units of the National Police. The task of the new armored vehicles is not to hunt «draft dodgers», but to evacuate civilians from under Russian shelling.
«The police in Kherson region perform not only the classic functions of maintaining law, order and legality, but also provide assistance to people who find themselves in difficult situations related to Russian aggression. Evacuation, in particular of the wounded from areas where the enemy arranges “safaris” on the civilian population, and carrying out other measures related to protecting people from drone attacks, is the daily work of our patrol officers on the line of fire», – said Prokudin.
The head of the OVA also indicated the cost of the new equipment – approximately 11 million hryvnias. There is, of course, no talk of any «support battalions» for the TRCs, since they exist only in the imagination of the authors of some Russian Telegram channels.
This material was prepared within a project supported by the NGO Institute of Mass Information and CzechAid