How Russia turned a body exchange agreement into a massive disinformation operation
In mid-June, Ukraine quietly received the bodies of 6,057 of its fallen soldiers. The mass repatriation, agreed upon during negotiations in Istanbul on June 2, should have marked a rare moment of humanitarian cooperation amid a brutal war. But within days, Moscow had transformed the return of the dead into a sprawling psychological warfare campaign — one aimed at manipulating grief, undermining trust in Ukrainian institutions, and sowing division.
The Kremlin’s effort, exposed by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security in Kyiv, unfolded as a Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) operation. Its purpose: to spread the falsehood that Ukraine had refused to retrieve its fallen soldiers in order to conceal battlefield losses and evade compensation payouts to bereaved families. The narrative was simple. The implications were explosive.
A Lie Begins to Spread
The disinformation effort began within 48 hours of the Istanbul agreement. On June 4, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed in a widely shared statement that “Zelensky doesn’t care about Ukrainians—whether dead or alive.”
The line was repeated in at least 160 separate publications, reaching more than 700,000 people.
Two days later, Vladimir Medinsky — assistant to President Vladimir Putin and head of the Russian delegation at the talks — doubled down, declaring publicly that Ukraine had refused to accept the return of 6,000 bodies.
State news agencies TASS, RIA Novosti, and Vesti quickly broadcast the story. Videos of refrigerated trucks allegedly holding Ukrainian corpses parked in Russia’s Bryansk region were shown alongside somber music and staged commentary from supposed “foreign journalists.”
But these were no independent observers. Dutch commentator Sonja van den Ende, who once claimed that Ukrainian forces had bombed their own prisoners at Olenivka, appeared on-site. German conspiracy theorist Thomas Röper, a regular Kremlin mouthpiece, gave “testimony.” Even Andrea Lucidi, an Italian editor newly granted Russian citizenship, joined the effort. Each spoke to camera in tones of concern — repeating Moscow’s talking points almost verbatim.
From Istanbul to Internet
The disinformation campaign was meticulously planned, with a wide ecosystem of channels and influencers activated. Between June 6 and June 20 alone, over 2,330 separate pieces of content appeared across Telegram, TikTok, VKontakte, Facebook, and fringe news sites. Their reach: an estimated 147 million views.
According to Ukrainian analysts, the campaign drew from a broader narrative the Kremlin has pushed since 2022 — that Ukraine is on the brink of collapse and must capitulate to avoid further destruction. Officials from Putin to Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, have warned that “Ukraine may cease to exist” if it continues to resist. This core narrative is then filtered through specific sub-messages: that Kyiv is hiding casualties, that the government no longer cares about its soldiers, and that the only path forward is surrender.
In this case, the fabricated claim about body repatriation served multiple purposes. It demoralized families awaiting word on missing soldiers. It portrayed the Ukrainian government as indifferent to the fallen. And it sought to turn ordinary citizens against the military and state — potentially eroding the social cohesion that has sustained the war effort for nearly three years.
Pseudo-Journalists and Propagandists
Perhaps the most cynical aspect of the campaign was its stagecraft. Russian state media not only claimed to offer “proof” — they created it.
Trucks filled with bodies were filmed as evidence of Ukrainian refusal, while a Kremlin-orchestrated “press tour” provided quotes and footage for later publication.
Monitoring by Ukraine’s information watchdog identified at least 990 articles and posts referencing the tour, many in languages other than Russian — indicating the Kremlin’s intent to reach both domestic and international audiences.
Fabricated screenshots of major Western outlets like Deutsche Welle and The Wall Street Journal circulated on Telegram, falsely reporting that Ukrainian families were refusing compensation. A deepfake video of former prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko appeared online accusing the government of abandoning its dead.
Even AI-generated images were deployed — stylized photos of military coffins, funerals, and weeping relatives, designed to evoke emotion and anger in Ukrainian viewers.
Inside the Echo Chamber
Much of the disinformation was spread via Telegram channels pretending to be Ukrainian news outlets. A dozen such channels — including “Ukraine Reality,” “Shara Ukrainy,” and “Mriya 2025” — pushed the same messaging: that Ukraine refused to retrieve bodies and was hiding the true scale of its losses.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, many of these channels are controlled by the GRU’s 85th Main Center, a known disinformation hub of the Russian military.
Prominent pro-Russian influencers also played key roles. Anatoliy Shariy, convicted of treason in absentia, posted 13 times in two weeks. Myroslav Oleshko, under NSDC sanctions, posted 14 times. Videos were reposted, cross-linked, and amplified — not only to increase reach but to simulate authenticity. Some posts even featured fake protest announcements, claiming that families were rallying against the Ukrainian government.
None of those protests happened. But that didn’t matter. For the Kremlin, the perception of unrest was as valuable as the real thing.
War on the Dead
The disinformation campaign ultimately failed to derail the actual repatriation. Ukrainian authorities received and identified the remains as planned, and no significant protests erupted. But the operation revealed the extent to which the Kremlin is willing to exploit not just the living, but the dead.
It also underscored a key fact about Russia’s information warfare: it rarely aims to convince. Instead, it seeks to confuse, erode, and destabilize. Even an act as sacred and apolitical as returning war dead becomes a battlefield.
