Russia spreads fake narrative that Ukraine has armed Hamas

Ukrainian journalist Oleksandr Kovalenko writes about it in his analytical piece on Medium. 

The Russian media attack on Ukraine was actually quite anticipated. In 2022, Russia also began a massive information campaign to undermine or even completely stop international military assistance to Ukraine by disseminating rumours that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were secretly trading in those foreign weapons.

The vast majority of these false reports were produced across many platforms by Russian propaganda, but not one of them has ever been confirmed.

After Hamas attacked Israel, Russian media intensified the previously mentioned campaign by asserting that certain weapons systems captured from terrorists were from Ukraine. At the same time, not a single report regarding authenticated samples of such weapons has been validated. 

Russia took full advantage of the chance to prepare the psyop and use all the resources they could to undermine Ukraine in the eyes of the international community. These narratives were widely disseminated by a variety of media outlets and political personalities, particularly the Trumpist wing of the GOP, who called for an end to further aid to Ukraine.

However, they did not take into account some nuances.

Russia gave Hamas weapons captured in Ukraine to discredit Kyiv

It is impossible to resell this weaponry in any way on the so-called black market because all weapons and equipment transferred to Ukraine are thoroughly controlled and tracked. 

Secondly, Russia does have some trophies from the battlefield because there is a full-scale war raging in Ukraine where military equipment is not only damaged or obliterated, but sometimes it also gets captured. For example, Ukraine has hundreds, even thousands of units of Russian military hardware.

Naturally, Russia has also taken certain weapons from Ukraine, including some that were donated by Kyiv's supporters in the West. And each of these cases is widely known to Ukraine's partners. 

Third, the possibility that specific weapons donated by the West to Ukraine could be captured by adversary forces during war is constantly taken into consideration.

Russian psyop against Ukraine, taking advantage of brutal bloodshed in Israel

America will now unquestionably assist Israel in dealing with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But why are many who opposed help to Ukraine and warned that weaponry would eventually fall into the hands of terrorists now so quiet? Are they not concerned that terrorists could obtain the weapons that are already being transferred to Israel? A difficult question that Russia's unsophisticated lobbyists and cynical propagandists could struggle to answer...

“Therefore, the wave that has now risen in the media regarding certain weapons that had been allegedly delivered from the West to Ukraine before eventually ending up in the hands of Hamas, is nothing but an actual psyop, clearly developed to accompany the violent attack on Israel,” Kovalenko writes.

Utilizing the continuous, horrific violence in Israel, Russia launched yet another major psyop against Ukraine.

However, it is unlikely that the Russian leaders of this psyop and those who carried it out directly will be able to respond to any of the questions that follow.

Did Moscow take direct part in the preparation of the assault on Israel?

• Why did the movement of the second echelon of the Hamas assault group in the video clearly demonstrate the military strategies used by small subversive and reconnaissance organizations, so typical of Russian special operations forces?

• How was it possible that Hamas learned how to operate UAVs with a tandem cumulative ammunition payload no worse than the Russian operators stationed in the conflict zone in Ukraine so shockingly quickly?

• How was the perimeter security system compromised in a blitz stunt? After all, Hamas is not known for its technologically advanced hacks against Israel.

• Where did the Hamas terrorists get those AK-103 assault rifles, which are extremely rare in the Russian army and were primarily used by elite units in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine? They were primarily expected to display these assault rifles at the parade on Khreshchatyk Street in Kyiv.

Pro-Russian factions in American and Israeli political circles will find the answers inconvenient.