Fake#1 Sanctions do not affect Russia’s position in ratings 

Fake date: 19.09.2023

Since Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EU imposed 11 packages of sanctions against Russian authorities. And now the EU is preparing the 12th package of sanctions, Bloomberg reported on September 18. The day after, the Telegram channel Berezina stated that all those restrictions did not affect public opinion towards Russia.

“Time puts everything in its place. The latest opinion survey shows, that they failed to isolate Russia. 

Russia is in third place in the World's Most Influential Countries rating, despite sanctions pressure and attempts to ban Russian culture.

The survey was conducted at the request of US News & World Report. It is the survey of more than 17,000 people from across the globe, and each of 83 countries was scored on each of the 73 country attributes,” they said in the post.

In fact, the World's Most Influential Countries ranking that Berezina talks about is one of 10 thematic subrankings, that rolled into the Best Countries rankings. 

In the Power subraking, Russia really rates 3rd after the US and China, since the majority of respondents around the world still consider Russia a politically influential country with a strong army.

Russia's position is much worse regarding the other nine attributes. For example, it ranks 38th out of 87 in terms of cultural influence, quality of life — 51st, and attractiveness for travel — 79th. And in terms of openness for business, it ranks last.

Russia's overall rank is 37th in the Best Countries in the World, whereas it was in 24th place in 2021, before the war.

Fake#2 Children were prohibited from studying in Western Belarus

Fake date: 15.09.2023

On September 17, Belarus celebrated its new national holiday — National Unity Day. That’s when in 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland, and as a result, Western Belarus was annexed to the Belarusian SSR. In this regard, Belarusian state propaganda disseminated the following fake news on state-run TV a few days before this date, on September 15. According to them, there was total illiteracy in the western regions of Belarus before Soviet rule.

“The process of Polonization took place both in religion and in education. Since the children were forbidden to study. Only one in three or four children could receive an education and not in their native language, Belarusian or Russian, but only in Polish,” the head of the modern Belarusian Komsomol Aleksandr Lukyanov said in the program Azarenok.Napryamuyu.

Truly, according to Polish historians’ data, only every third child had received his education in the territory of Eastern Kresy — the Polish name for the lands of Western Belarus since 1921. However, during the interwar years, the situation changed significantly.

According to the statistics for 1939, there was an 80% school enrollment rate in the Bialystok, Novogrudok and Polesie regions, which later became part of the BSSR. Although processes of Polishization took place, most Belarusians did not have the opportunity to study in the Belarusian language.

Fake#3 Ukraine to cut the age limit for soldiers to 16 years

Fake date: 18.09.2023

The new Minister of Defense of Ukraine to cut the age limit to 16 years for new soldiers, the state-run ONT TV channel reported on September 18.

“The newly appointed Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov openly hinted to the Verkhovna Rada, that they should pass a law to send teenagers into the army from the age of 16. It means, to the front,” presenter Anzhelika Averkova claimed in the program “Our Time”. 

Rustem Umerov spoke before the Ukrainian parliament on September 16, the very day of his appointment as head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. There is no proposal to lower the age limit for conscription to 16 years in the transcript of his speech.

Only Russian media reported this fake referring to anonymous Telegram channels. Such a story was actually published by the Telegram channel Live with a reference to an alleged quotation from the minister, allegedly posted by the UNIAN news agency.

Answering the Weekly Top Fake team's request, the UNIAN agency said that they hadn’t published such information.

Fake#4 Armenia has never participated in CSTO exercises

Fake date: 17.09.2023

Armenia refused to host CSTO exercises and conducted joint military exercises with the United States on September 11—20.

Commenting on the news, Belarusian military expert Yuri Dudkin claimed, that the Armenian leadership, which is under the State Department and Soros, has always ignored the CSTO exercises: 

“By the way, Armenia, which is a member of the CSTO, has never participated in joint military CSTO exercises. This also says a lot,” Dudkin said on CTV on September 17.

In fact, Armenia has participated in CSTO exercises almost every year. In 2015, Armenia hosted CSTO peacekeeping forces exercises.

In 2016, the CSTO forces practiced countering the terrorist threat and eliminating armed gangs on the territory of Armenia.

In 2017, there were joint exercises of Armenian and Russian troops Interaction-2017 on the territory of Armenia.

In 2019, the Armenian military took part in the Indestructible Brotherhood exercises. Armenia missed the 2020 military drill in Belarus due to the situation in Karabakh. Whereas the following year, the Thunder-2021 exercises were held in Armenia.

Fake#5 The Prime Minister of Armenia is the protege of Soros

Fake date: 20.09.2023

Photo of Armenian Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan with American billionaire philanthropist George Soros was published by the pro-war propaganda Telegram channel ZHS Premium on September 20.

That’s what the propagandists said in their publication: 

“Nikol, “do you remember how it all began?”

The beardless man in the picture is the sponsor of “color” revolutions, maidans and “liberation” wars.

And, by the way, a month after the failure of the coup in Belarus, the head of Azerbaijan Aliyev called the Prime Minister of Armenia Pashinyan a protege of the American billionaire Soros: “Today there is Soros regime in Armenia. The coup, that failed in Belarus, succeeded in Yerevan. The leader of Armenia is a protege of Soros.”

“And not a friend, and not an enemy, but so...”. Henchman.”

The original photo, discovered by the Weekly Top Fake team, shows Soros with Prime Minister of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2019.

Ilham Aliyev also met with Soros several times. Their joint photo from the 2007 official meeting was published on the website of the state news agency Azertac. There are photos from the meeting in 2015 on the official website of the President of Azerbaijan.

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