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Evgeny Feldman, a photojournalist for the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta at the time, was in Sloviansk that day and able to fact-check the story.
“Obviously, they could have heard [the story] as rumours, or they could have witnessed that. So that kind of made it a way to prove that this story is fake,” he says.
And that worked. Not a single person there had heard about it.
Donbas: a propaganda hotbed
It’s a territory known as Ukraine’s ‘energy powerhouse’, home to significant coal and mineral reserves, and is one of the territories reportedly desired by Putin in exchange for ending the war.
“Historical revisionism and attempts to grossly distort facts became even more mainstream [in 2024]. AI-generated content was used more intensely by pro-Kremlin actors as a tool to flood the information space with manipulative content and false claims,” the report found.
In July 2014, the Ukrainian town of Sloviansk became the subject of pro-Kremlin fake news, identified by the EU’s flagship project to debunk disinformation as “one of the peaks of the Kremlin-orchestrated campaign targeted at inciting hatred against Ukrainians”. Source: Supplied / Evgeny Feldman
Because of the ongoing dispute over Donbas, the territory has become particularly susceptible to pro-Russian propaganda and was one of the few places in Ukraine that continued to broadcast Russian state TV after the invasion in 2014, despite continuous attempts by the Ukrainian government to block the signal.
He says, after leaving Sloviansk, he soon went to report from the separatist side and met a man who believed the fake crucifixion story.
“It’s very hard to figure out how to work with it. Because obviously, they are able to do five [fake] stories in a time span that you need to contradict the first one.
The Russian government is trying to overload people with these terrible stories, hoping that some will stick and will prevent them from thinking rationally.
“Somehow it works. Maybe you’ll be critical about the first story, and you’ll hear the third one, and you’ll be sure that they are lying to you. But then the fifth or the seventh or the tenth will strike a chord with you.”
Information as a ‘geopolitical weapon’
“Another major red flag is the designation of the leaders of the Ukrainian government as sympathisers with Nazism, despite the fact that members of [President Volodomyr] Zelenskyy’s Jewish family died during the Holocaust and that the Ukrainian state is far more tolerant towards minorities than the Russian state has been.”
EUvsDisinfo, disinformation awareness project under the EU’s diplomatic service, was established in 2015 in response to the call by the Council of the European Union to establish a strategic plan to counter the growing threat posed by Russia’s disinformation campaigns. Credit: SBS News
Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 by annexing Crimea and backing the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. This led to war between Ukraine and the separatists, with the separatists later proclaiming the two regions as independent “people’s republics” — although Ukraine maintained control over two-thirds of the territory up until Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
“If Nazi Germany managed to build such powerful propaganda when there were not so many mechanisms and technologies, then now, with deepfakes and everything else, you can manipulate people even more — as we see.”
Australian academic fed fakes in Donbas
One such documentary — a special report from the English-language program ‘Russian Ark’ produced by the Russian Orthodox Church TV channel Spas — is sanctioned by the EU and banned on YouTube. Spas TV’s YouTube content can’t be accessed in Australia but the film can be found elsewhere online.
In late 2024, the English-language program Russian Ark, produced by the Russian Orthodox Church TV channel Spas, featured a report about Australian former academic Tim Anderson (right) travelling to the occupied Donbas. Source: Supplied
The episode features Australian activist and former academic, Tim Anderson, who travels to Donbas with Spas TV reporter Andrey Afanasyev. Anderson has his own blogging channel on multiple social media platforms, with one boasting at least 222,000 followers.
He then takes him to an empty playground and makes false claims about local children being kidnapped by humanitarian organisations for “paedophile or organ donor networks”.
Sharing his impressions in a separate YouTube video after his trip, Anderson appears convinced by the propaganda, saying he was aware “the Russian forces had moved into the Donbas region to liberate the Russian people from the Kyiv regime”, going on to characterise Ukraine as “a neo-fascist puppet” of NATO and the US, installed after “the coup” in 2014.
There is no evidence to suggest it has been involved in kidnapping.
Russian disinformation in Australia
“So they might have kind of ‘gotcha’ reports on some politician that are totally fake. But it feels exactly like the kind of journalism that we tend to do.
It really undermines trust in systems and that is ultimately the goal of Russian disinformation campaigns — that the trust in the institutional systems is fundamentally undermined.
“But what happens, for instance, is that you achieve a false balance between someone who is a victim and someone who is an oppressor.”
The Senate inquiry into Australia’s support for Ukraine in 2024 recommended the federal government improve resources “to identify and address foreign interference and disinformation activities in Australia, including from Russian actors”. Credit: SBS
The role of the Australian media in spreading disinformation narratives became a focus of last year’s Senate inquiry into Australia’s support for Ukraine.
One of the submissions came from Kateryna Argyrou, then-co-chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations (and later chair), who pointed out an episode of ABC’s Four Corners from March 2024 that broadcast part of the documentary Ukraine’s War: The Other Side.
Langan also interviews Russian soldiers, some of them suggesting to “learn Russian history”, claiming it shows that “the Russians don’t attack, the Russians end wars”.
In its response to the Senate inquiry report, the Australian government agreed with its recommendation to better address disinformation activities by Russian actors but also cited steps it is taking to protect “the democratic institutions at the federal, state and territory, and local level”. These include task forces set up through government agencies, as well as engagement with at-risk communities.
Journalists targeted for refusing to collaborate
“There are some press tours that are available for journalists, for those photographers or correspondents who work for Western media in Moscow, like Reuters, AFP, AP,” Feldman says.
Sometimes they are allowed near the front line, but I think most of what they see is kind of staged.
Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was detained in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region in August 2023 and held in captivity in Russia for almost two years. Her mutilated body was returned to Ukraine with some organs missing in May 2025. Source: AP / Efrem Lukatsky
In May, Russia returned the body of 27-year-old journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna, who was detained in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region in August 2023. Roschyna was reportedly held captive in Russian-occupied Melitopol, with forensic examination of her body suggesting she was tortured. Her body was returned to Ukraine with some organs missing — the brain, eyes and larynx.
This story was part of a research trip hosted by the German Federal Foreign Office in cooperation with the National Press Club of Australia.
