InformNapalm, an international journalist network performing open-source investigations into Russia’s military activities, says Russian-led forces in early December spread fake reports that Ukrainian forces bombarded the Russian-occupied city of Debaltseve with threatening leaflets stuffed inside artillery shells.
Russian-led forces claim the “leaflet shells” contain papers with menacing and gory images designed to intimidate the local civilian population.
Such “leaflet shells” do in fact exist, and were used in the Second World War to spread propaganda. The shell, packed with leaflets, is fired in the same way as an explosive shell. While in flight, a plug at the back of the shell is released, and the leaflets fly out, falling over a wide area.
Reports about the “leaflet shelling” started spreading in early December, InformNapalm activists Roman Burko and Kuzma Tutov said in a post on the group’s website made on Dec. 4.
From Dec. 1, Russian-controlled media outlets and social network pages started circulating images of artillery shells filled with propaganda pamphlets bearing the image of a Nazi SS soldier with a Ukrainian Trident symbol on his helmet, along with the red-and-black banner of the Right Sector, a Ukrainian nationalist organization, in the background. Right Sector’s military wing still participates in the war in the Donbas alongside Ukraine’s regular army.
Photos of the leaflets also show them with a message in Russian reading: “We don’t need people! We need territory! Leave and you’ll survive! Greetings from the Right Sector! Soon we’re going to slaughter your wives and children, and you will celebrate New Year six feet under or in prison!”
On the other side, the leaflets bear images of mutilated bodies of women and children.
Media in the Russian-occupied areas published images of dismantled unexploded shells packed tightly with what was claimed to be the intimidating leaflets.
According to the InformNapalm, the images were widely circulated in social networks, blogs, and marginal media outlets, and later reposted by some of Russia’s top news sources, such as Gazeta.ru, Vzglyad.ru, Interfax, and RIA.
A screenshot taken from the InformNapalm website shows allegedly Ukrainian-made propaganda leaflets bearing images of mutilated bodies, a Nazi SS soldier with a Ukrainian Trident on his helmet, and a threatening message.
However, the open-source investigators say the leaflets are likely fakes, made by Russian-led forces themselves.
From a technical point of view, it was impossible to completely prove that the leaflets were forged by Russian-led forces, InformNapalm activist Roman Burko told the Kyiv Post. However, he said their content totally corresponds to Russia’s propaganda narrative, which describes the Ukrainian Armed Forces as “fascist punishers” who commit atrocities on civilians in the Donbas.
“Besides, in the photos, the leaflets are not crumpled, and there are no signs showing that they have been rolled up to be packed into the shell before,” Burko also said. “Therefore, they were printed up and photographed for fake news.”
According to the InformNapalm activists, the images of the shell show a 122-millimeter A1ZhD leaflet shell, which is normally fired from D-30 howitzers or 2S1 self-propelled guns. Such projectiles are used by both sides to deliver propaganda to local civilians. However, details in the photos indicate the shell was never actually fired, the investigators said.
“The photos show the shell lying in a small pothole in slightly dug-up ground,” the investigators said.
“In reality, its capacity and its 20-kilogram weight are enough to penetrate the earth to a depth of 1.5 meters. Thus the broken fence plank and loosened soil are a crude imitation of the impact of an unexploded leaflet shell.”
“The images of the shell filled with leaflets … look implausible. The allegedly malfunctioning shell has no plug, which is twisted in when a projectile is prepared for firing. Without this plug, the leaflets would have been incinerated in an instant from the powder burning inside the gun barrel.”
The InformNapalm activists concluded the A1ZhD shell could not have impacted in such a condition, but was packed with fake leaflets for staged photos.
