Fake#1 Belarus and Russia will jointly decide whether to use nuclear weapons 

Fake date 1.04.2023

On May 25, the Defense Ministers of  Belarus and Russia signed documents on the procedure for keeping Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.

The decision on its use remains with Moscow, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on the same day. Thus, the previous statements of Alexander Lukashenko were refuted.

“Everything will be according to the law and according to the rules. As for the management, control of nuclear weapons, and so on, well, you know me for a long time.  

There are no uncontrolled weapons in Belarus and cannot be.

Therefore, we will manage everything that is in Belarus,” Lukashenko said on March 31.

The next day, on April 1, the newspaper of his Administration “SB Belarus Today” gives detailed explanations of Lukashenko’s statement:

“The decision on using Russian special munitions, deployed in our country, will be taken jointly by the heads of Belarus and Russia based on agreements between our countries in the field of national security defense. The keyword is "jointly".

Therefore, any insinuations representing Belarus only as a place of storage and a launch pad, as well as considering only Moscow as a decision-making center, do not correspond to reality.” wrote newspaper columnist Anton Popov. 

Russian Defense Minister's statement contradicts both what the author of the Belarusian state publication wrote and what Lukashenko said earlier.

Also, by July 1, the construction of a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons has to be completed on the territory of Belarus. And since April 2023, Belarusian pilots have been learning how to fly aircraft capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Fake#2 160 countries of Collective East unite against West

Fake date 26.05.2023 

The 49th G7 summit was held in Hiroshima city, and Russia's allies gathered for the Eurasian Economic Forum in Moscow.

In this context, in the program Editors' Club on the state-run TV channel Belarus-1, Belarusian political propagandist Piotr Petrovsky counted more than 150 countries, that are allegedly tired of the unipolar world system and are ready to unite against the West:

«The President of Belarus proposed a wonderful formula for what is called the "Collective East" — the EAEU, plus the SCO, plus the BRICS. 

These are those 160 countries outside the West that are tired of the colonialist discriminatory policies of the unipolar world system of the West and want to have an existence ... a sovereign, multipolar, and more just world system.”

How Petrovsky manages to count 160 countries of the "Collective East" is not clear.

The EAEU consists of five countries: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.

In addition to Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) also includes Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan, and China. That is 5 countries plus.

The BRICS is five more countries.  Russia and China, are among them, as well as South Africa, Brazil, and India.

In total: the EAEU, the SCO, and the BRICS — 13 countries of the “Collective East” together.

At the moment, 12 more countries have declared their desire to join the BRICS, and 10 — to the SCO.

Even if the "Collective East" is increased by two dozen participants, it still will not reach the 160 countries in total that Petrovsky mentioned.

Fake#3 The port of Klaipeda compensated for the losses from the stoppage of the transit of Belarusian potassium

Fake date 26.05.2023

The EU has not adopted the 11th package of sanctions against both Belarus and Russia. And Pavel Latushka said that some EU countries were lobbying for the lifting of restrictions against Belaruskali. 

Assessing these prospects, political observer Artyom Shraibman claimed in an interview with Euroradio that, after the major Belarusian client has gone, the port of Klaipeda has already compensated for the loss: 

“Lithuania seems to stand more fundamentally. In Lithuania, the port of Klaipeda was able to reach pre-crisis levels. Even without Belarusian potassium, that was expected by almost no one.”

Let's check if this is actually the case. In February 2022, the national state-owned railway company Lithuanian Railways terminated the contract with Belaruskali for fertilizers transportation.

Since then, the port of Klaipeda has not loaded Belarusian potash.

Cargo turnover decreased by 20% according to the data on the work of the port for 2022. 

The port shifted its focus from fertilizer to container shipping. As a result, revenue fell by 10%, i.e. from 66 to 60 million euros.

Hence, the Lithuanians did not manage to gain full compensation for their financial loss. But they continue to stand up for sanctions.

Fake #4. European media predict Ukrainian counteroffensive to failure

Fake date 24.05.2023

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attended the European Political Community Summit that is held in Moldova on 1 June.

On the same day, the Russian Telegram channel Ponomar published an alleged June cover of the German satirical magazine Eulenspiegel with the headline “Ukraine continues fundraising from everywhere for its suicide”.

However, there is no such cover on the magazine's website. Its editorial team has also denied its existence.

Here is what Eulenspiegel replied to the BIC's request:

“Thanks for pointing this out! Of course, we have nothing to do with this encrypted nonsense.”

In addition, native German speakers note that on the fake cover, the word “weiter” is at the end of the sentence, but should be in the middle.

The Ponomar Telegram channel earlier published another fake cover attributed to the French weekly newspaper Courrier International.

“The counteroffensive promised by Volodymyr Zelensky is under menace…

How the loss of Bakhmut will affect the course of the conflict,” it's said on the cover.

This publication was made on the Telegram channel on May 24. And issue number 1700 is indicated on the cover. However, the original  digital issue under the number 1700 appeared on the official website only on May 31.

The original cover is dedicated not to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and their Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, but to inheritance, and looks like this:

BIC also paid attention to the barcode of both covers. The original ones have a 5-digit code, while the fake cover has a 6-digit code.

Fake #5. Polish border guards abuse migrants at the border

Fake date 30.05.2023

Reportedly, on the Belarusian-Polish border the number of migrants who are trying to enter the country illegally is again growing.

Polish border guards registered 10,000 such attempts during the first five months of 2023.

And the pro-Russia propaganda Telegram channel ZhS Premium claimed that there were foreigners offended by Polish border guards:

“The Polish humanitarian organization Grupa Granica, which helps refugees, reported on the situation at the border, where 11 children and 13 adults from Syria and Iraq have been living for several days. Refugees are trying to break into Europe. And Europe, represented by the vicious Polish border guards, does not let them through.”

According to Grupa Granica on Facebook, Syrians and Iraqis with children are trapped at the border. However, it describes the situation differently. Polish border guards do not let migrants into Poland, and Belarusian border guards threaten to set dogs on them.

“Today, the Belarusian service threatened them that if they did not cross over to Poland, they would be bitten by dogs. As evidence, a Congolese woman was brought to the group, who had already been bitten by the dogs of the Belarusian border guards. A group of 25 people was trapped,” the organization reported.