While the Russian army continues to terrorize the Kherson region with drones and artillery, Kremlin-controlled media are waging their own war — an information war. Last week propagandists invented imaginary “battalions” to assist the TCC, found “fuel tankers” where road machinery was operating, and tried to convince the audience that Kherson supposedly has been forgotten by Ukraine. We break down the most notable fakes and manipulations that the Russians have spread about the region over the past week.
The Russians accuse… the Ukrainian authorities of shelling Kherson
The occupier forces, while shelling the right bank of the Kherson region daily, at the same time try to shift responsibility for their actions onto the Armed Forces of Ukraine and local authorities. The “Kyiv junta” supposedly cannot protect Kherson residents, so they are allegedly expecting a renewed occupation without leaving the region. At the same time, enemy propaganda spreads narratives that “everyone has forgotten” about Kherson and that news from the city is being ignored by national television channels.
“Residents of Inzhenerne, Molodizhne, Tekstylʹnykiv, Zelenivka are already tired of appealing to all authorities and writing on social networks that something flies and explodes over these settlements every 5–10 minutes. People ask for protection not in officials’ reports, but in practice,” the Kremlin propagandists note.
It is telling that the occupiers try in their publications to depersonalize those who shell settlements on the right bank of the Kherson region. Mines and shells fall on civilian Kherson residents, according to the authors of the “Kherson Resistance” channel, by themselves, without the involvement of the Russian army. This is a psychological manipulation intended to remove the aggressor’s responsibility for these strikes.
At the same time, the ability of the Ukrainian authorities and the Armed Forces to protect Kherson residents is being questioned. Specific names are now being mentioned: in the Russians’ view, the head of the OVA Oleksandr Prokudin and MP Serhii Kozyr are to blame for the shelling of Kherson. They supposedly do not do enough to protect the civilian population.
In reality, the Russian army hits the right bank of the region with so many drones that, unfortunately, a certain percentage still reaches their targets despite electronic warfare measures and mobile fire groups. Thus, according to the Kherson OVA, only last week more than two thousand UAVs were launched at the Kherson community alone, 93% of which were destroyed while still on approach.
Another common manipulation by the Russians is the claim that the Kherson region is being “kept silent”:
“On nationwide channels and in social networks, Kherson region has stopped being mentioned in the list of regions when announcing an air raid — we are effectively being crossed out of the information field. For them we are simply expendable material that they are trying to send to the slaughter,” the Russians state.
This fake is quite easy to refute: just type “Kherson” into a search engine like YouTube, and you will see that local, national and international media are not silent about the situation in the regional center — information about Kherson shelling is one of the top news items on most popular resources.
Imaginary fuel tankers
The Russian occupation contingent on the left bank of the Kherson region is beginning to suffer from a fuel shortage caused by Ukrainian drone strikes on the “Novorossiya” road. This is making the occupiers very nervous, and they now constantly imagine “Ukrainian fuel tankers” that need to be attacked. Thus, on June 4 the Russians allegedly destroyed an entire column of “fuel tankers.”
“As they say: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a fuel tanker for a fuel tanker. And this is just the beginning. Karma didn’t take long to show up,” the authors of the pro-Russian Telegram channel “Free Kherson” captioned a video of equipment engulfed in flames.
In these frames it is indeed the right bank of the Kherson region, but what is burning are not fuel tankers but asphalt pavers. The Russians simply attacked machinery that was carrying out road repairs in one of the communities on the right bank of the Kherson region. This was also confirmed by the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine.
“The enemy continues to deliberately attack civilians who carry out their daily work and ensure the functioning of the country. Today an enemy drone hit a site where road works were being carried out. As a result of the attack, 10 units of road machinery were destroyed. Fortunately, the workers were not injured,” the ministry noted.
A day later the Russians attacked a gas station near the settlement of Posad-Pokrovske. There were no fuel tankers nearby either, but there were peaceful Kherson residents. As a result of that strike, to the Russians’ delight, two people were killed. However, predictably, attacks on civilian infrastructure objects did not in any way resolve the fuel shortage situation for the Russians on the left bank of the Kherson region.
“Assistance Battalion” for the TCC
Reports about mobilization on the right bank of the Kherson region occupy an extremely important place in the hierarchy of Russian propaganda narratives. Recently, enemy media invented the creation in the region of a separate “battalion” that would supposedly help TCC staff carry out service. The head of the Kherson OVA Oleksandr Prokudin allegedly even handed several cars to the “peoplehunters,” but, of course, all these stories turned out to be outright lies.
“In the Kherson region occupied by Ukraine, the authorities have begun forming new battalions. Their main task is to help the TCC conduct harsh, violent mobilization of the local population. For this purpose the so-called head Prokudin handed them three armored vehicles. Until the last Ukrainian, as they themselves like to say,” the enemy media claim.
As proof of their words, the Russians present a photo in which Oleksandr Prokudin hands over vehicles to people in uniform. The photo is genuine, but in it the head of the OVA is replenishing the fleet not of some imaginary “battalion” but of local units of the National Police. The purpose of the new armored vehicles is not to hunt “draft dodgers” but to evacuate civilians from under Russian shelling.
“The police in the Kherson region perform not only the classic functions of upholding law, order and legality, but also assist people who find themselves in difficult situations related to Russian aggression. Evacuation, including of the wounded from areas where the enemy stages a ‘safari’ on the civilian population, and carrying out other measures related to protecting people from drone attacks — this is the daily work of our patrols on the front line,” Prokudin said.
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 “assistance battalions” for the TCC, since they exist only in the imagination of the authors of some Russian Telegram channels.