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A Kremlin-aligned disinformation operation is falsely accusing Ukraine’s allies of plotting to divide the war-torn country’s territory between them in the event of a peace deal with Russia.
The claims — which Euronews’ verification and fact-checking team detected on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok and X — are purportedly based on a disclosure of confidential French military documents by prominent Russian hacking group Killnet.
The disinformation claims that those leaked documents reveal a secret plan to divide the territory and natural resources of Ukraine between four allies — France, the UK, Poland and Romania — and to deploy as many as 50,000 peacekeeping troops.
A map allegedly detailing the plan to “divide Ukraine into zones of influence” is also circulating.
But a closer look at the map shows several grammatical and spelling errors which, according to a new French government X account which debunks false claims, demonstrate that the map is not the work of the French military.
For example, Belarus is incorrectly translated into French as “Biélarus” rather than “Biélorussie”.
The name of former French General Thierry Burkhard is also misspelt.
French debunkers have also pointed out that the title of the map omits the French article ‘la’, which they say is a mistake typically made by Russian native speakers.
The map also shows Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, as an integral part of Russia’s territory, while France and Western allies consider the territory to be a Ukrainian territory under Russia control.
Despite these errors exposing the map as disinformation, EuroVerify detected the map and accompanying false claims on several Kremlin-aligned media outlets.
The same claims have also been re-hashed into an AI-generated video resembling a news report.
According to open source intelligence experts, the map was first shared on Telegram account Mash on 9 September.
Mash is a Russian media known for being close to the Kremlin and one of the most popular Russian-language channels on the platform.
It’s known for spreading false information aimed at undermining Ukraine and its allies. It’s believed to be behind previous false allegations that Kyiv was selling the organs of deceased soldiers on the black market, as well as unfounded claims Ukraine had lost as many as 1.7 million armed forces, previously debunked by Euroverify.
While so-called community notes contradicting the false claims have now been added to certain posts on X, the claims are still circulating without corrections on other platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
