According to the UN, European countries have accepted and registered more than eight million refugees from Ukraine since Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. European countries welcome Ukrainians with great enthusiasm and a desire to help.
Meanwhile, Russia spreads fake news and starts hate and disinformation campaigns. «Trybun» will tell about the main narratives of Russian propaganda used in the fight against Ukrainian refugees.
Ukrainians flee from the Nazis to Russia
Even before the full-scale invasion, the Russian propaganda media repeatedly claimed that our country was ruled by Nazis who want to destroy everything Russian. Therefore, it will be logically, if Ukrainians, primarily Russian-speaking, flee from such authorities to Russia.
Russian propaganda media claim that the largest number of refugees from Ukraine have left for their country and that they «live very well there», «they receive help», «they will have an opportunity to buy housing», etc.
In fact, many Ukrainian «refugees» went to Russia against their own will. Carrying out the so-called evacuation, Russia forcibly deported thousands of people to its territory. According to the UN, since February 24, 2022, Russia has deported more than 2.5 million people to its territory.
However, Russia considers such cases to be voluntary crossing of the border, claiming that «Russian troops provided civilians with humanitarian corridors, which were mercilessly fired upon by the «neo-Nazis».
The Russians also reported that the authorities of the Russian Federation would help Ukrainians to build a new life: to buy real estate, send children to schools and kindergartens, and look for jobs.
Pro-Russian users in their posts also say that everyone lives well in Russia. The authors of the reports try to prove it According to them, Crimea returned «home», and if Russia stole it, as Ukraine says, refugees would also leave the peninsula.
Such messages are useful for Russian propaganda to rehabilitate Russia: to show that it cares about Ukrainian refugees who were forced to flee the war.
Ukrainian refugees are insolent fellows who don't want to work
At the beginning of March 2022, the propaganda resource «Eye of the Planet» published a text under the title «»Civilized» West will still shudder after meeting reffo from Ukraine».
Russia always says that Ukrainian refugees will be deported from the EU countries soon because they allegedly organize pogroms, behave insolently and do not want to work. Such publications called refugees from Ukraine lazy, dependents and claimed that Ukrainians left their country for the sake of profit.
Ukrainian refugees were also blamed for the fact that because of them, hotels in Bulgaria, Croatia and other countries no longer want to accommodate tourists from Ukraine. The Russians claim that Ukrainians terrorize Russian-speakers abroad, attack Russian-speaking children and pregnant women; burning Nazi symbols on lawns, etc. The news that in one of the numbers, Ukrainians had written in feces «Glory to Ukraine was among the most striking messages. Lithuanian fact-checkers debunked this fake. The photo of the so-called fecal inscription on the wall in the hotel is a photomontage.
In December 2022, the Russian news showed a story with a woman crying and saying that refugees from Ukraine had set fire to her house.
The video with the Bild tabloid's logo was spread from a small YouTube account via the Telegram app all the way to Russian state media.
«However, it was a fake, with footage of unrelated events stitched together to create a fake news report that presented Ukrainian refugees as hopeless instigators wreaking havoc on the generous Germans who accepted them,» The Washington Post» newspaper noted.
During the year of the Great War, a lot of similar information about «evil Ukrainians attacking Russians» appeared on the Internet in Europe.
In social networks, propagandists created the appearance that for such «misdemeanors» Ukrainian refugees would be deported en masse from the EU countries. For example, Europeans even allegedly hold rallies demanding the expulsion of Ukrainians in some countries.
Propagandists need this to convince everyone that Ukrainians are scoundrels who do not appreciate the help provided to them by residents of other countries. In this way, propaganda also tries to discredit those countries that provide support to Ukraine during the war with Russia. Propagandists are sure that, because of bad refugees, these countries will deny support to Ukraine soon, so Ukraine will be left alone with its problems.
Also, Russia needs it to justify its military offensive against Ukraine, which, in particular, aims to conduct the so-called denazification. «Nazism» in Ukraine is allegedly widespread not only among the representatives of the government, but also among ordinary people who are ready to attack others if they do not speak Ukrainian, etc. In this way, agitprop tries to discredit Ukrainian refugees and add another feature to the image of a «lazy refugee» - aggressive xenophobia.
Refugees from Ukraine spread infections and engage in prostitution
The Russians say that Ukrainian refugees not only do not want to work and attack people, but also brought infectious diseases to Europe and engage in prostitution.
For example, EurasiaDaily spread the statement that Ukrainians brought diseases to Estonia. However, the Estonian Department of Health denied this fact. Propagandists once again tried to spread the idea that Ukrainian refugees are sex workers who came to EU countries to earn money.
Russian propaganda needs all these messages to discredit Ukrainians and create the impression that they are only harming EU countries.
Refugees as a cultural threat
Many posts also referred to the fact that Ukrainian refugees allegedly cannot peacefully coexist with citizens of other countries. For example, Ukrainians allegedly cannot adapt to life next to civilized Europeans. Apparently, due to a lack of culture and education, people from Ukraine destroy property in apartments and hotels, organize noisy parties and they are rude to those who make comments to them.
Russian propaganda has long depicted Ukrainians as Nazis and Russophobes. The propagandists also write that Ukrainians are harming the peaceful life of the countries that host them, because they cross the border with weapons that the Ukrainian authorities gave to citizens in the first days of the great war. In fact, only territorial defense fighters, who cannot leave the country during martial law, received weapons.
Europe exploits Ukrainians
Pro-Russian mass media blamed not only Ukrainians, but also the leadership of the EU countries, which allegedly seeks to profit from Ukrainians and develop their economy thanks to their work. For example, the UK, according to pro-Russian users of social networks, deceives the people of Ukraine by forcing refugees to «clean toilets for pennies».
In this way, the propagandists want to convince people that the war in Ukraine is beneficial to the EU countries and therefore they will allegedly do everything to make it last as long as possible.
However, Russia started the war in Ukraine, and it is Russia that has no intention of ending it, destroying Ukrainian cities and villages every day. Instead, the EU and the USA provide weapons to Ukraine not so that «the war lasts as long as possible and the EU welcomes refugees», but so that Ukraine can defeat the aggressor as soon as possible and recapture the occupied territories.
Ukrainian refugees have privileges
In their posts, the Russians claim that refugees from Ukraine who have gone to EU countries live there in better conditions than refugees from other countries. Russian propagandists contrast Ukrainian refugees with migrants from Africa and the Middle East. Benevolent attitude towards Ukrainians is presented to the inhabitants of countries of the Global South as «white racism».
The fact that Ukrainian refugees are supposedly better than others is not a new thesis of Russian propaganda. It is spread in order to accuse the EU countries and the USA of racism and special treatment of Ukrainians.
One of the posts even said that Polish children with cancer should give their places to Ukrainian refugees.
«Polish children are forced to cancer hospitals. My neighbor called me today, her four-year-old son was forced to leave the oncology hospital, because they need to prepare room for Ukrainian children there.
She asked me to help treat her son, because she knows that there are doctors in my family,» a Twitter user under the nickname Aga writes.
The Polish Ministry of Health and the Polish Society of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology denied this information. Apart from that tweet, there are no references to the alleged incident in the Polish media.
However, refugees from Ukraine abroad, like refugees from other countries, also have to live in special centers; agree to work on low-skilled jobs despite the fact that they have a higher education, etc. It is also important to understand that the most EU countries were not ready for the first waves of mass migration a few years ago. The EU countries developed a mechanism for hosting refugees in a flash.
Ukrainians won't return home
Pro-Russian mass media like to use this thesis as well. Ukrainians supposedly left abroad not because of the war and not to save their lives, but because they simply wanted to leave and now they will stay abroad. Propagandists call the war in Ukraine a chance for Ukrainians to move abroad.
Depending on the situation, propaganda portrays Ukrainians as both aggressors and victims of aggression, and a «legitimate» target for hatred and bullying.
Propagandists have diametrically opposite messages in their arsenal.
Rich people, driving expensive cars, left Ukraine and their behavior shocks reserved Europeans; Ukrainians are beggars for whom crossing the EU border has become a «lucky ticket».
The Russians use polar images of brazen «majors» and similarly brazen marginal, whose appearance and behavior irritate Europeans in order to discredit Ukrainians abroad and incite hatred of refugees among compatriots who stay at home.
From time to time such messages was threatening. They said that the neighboring countries have understood Ukrainians, they already know who Ukrainians are and what they want, so the government of the countries will soon begin to deprive them of benefits and asylum.
In this way, Russian propaganda also strengthens the narrative that Ukraine as a state will soon cease to exist, because millions of refugees who, according to the propagandists, left Ukraine will never return home, and there will be few people left in Ukraine who will not be able to develop it.
However, pro-Russian users posts that it was not only that Ukrainian refugees do not want to return to Ukraine, but also that they are not expected here and do not need to return. In such posts, the statement of the Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Reintegration Iryna Vereshchuk was mostly manipulated. They said that Vereshchuk asked the refugees not to return, so Ukraine does not need them.
In fact, she asked Ukrainians not to rush to return home and wait.
«You see: Russia has turned to terrorizing the civilian population, it can't fight the army, it loses on the battlefield… You see what Russia is doing… Unfortunately, the networks can't stand it… If you have the opportunity to stay in winter abroad, it is worth doing it,» Vereshchuk said
People are leaving Ukraine and it's the West' Fault
Some media tried to discredit countries that host refugees. Pro-Russian users claim that the leadership of Western countries is to blame for the fact that refugees from Ukraine are going to the EU and American countries.
Although in fact, in April of this year, the United States developed the Uniting for Ukraine program, which is designed to help Ukrainian refugees. Citizens of Ukraine and their immediate family members are allowed to come to the US and stay in the country for two years. Ukrainians participating in the Uniting for Ukraine program must have a sponsor in the US who will provide them with financial support during their stay in the country.
Other states, such as Poland and Moldova, were also accused of seeking benefit from the «prolongation» of the war in Ukraine. It seems to be beneficial for them, because refugees from Ukraine will develop the local economy.
