Russia’s Disinformation Was in Place Before It Struck a Kyiv Apartment Block, Killing 24

Russia moved to deny responsibility for a deadly missile strike on a Kyiv apartment building on May 14, launching a disinformation campaign built on narratives seeded the day before the attack. 

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), operating under the National Security and Defense Council, documented the campaign in a Telegram post published on May 15, one day after Russian forces struck a nine-storey residential building in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district, killing 24 people, including three children aged 12, 15, and 17.

Familiar Playbook, Coordinated Rollout

According to the CCD, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels moved quickly after the strike, mass-distributing the claim that the destruction of the building was “the result of Ukrainian air defense work” — a standard deflection tactic Russian propaganda has used repeatedly since the beginning of the full-scale invasion to shift blame for Russian strikes onto Ukraine’s own defence systems.

Some propagandists went further. The CCD documented claims circulating on Russian Telegram channels that the tragedy in the capital was “a staged performance and theatrical staging” organised by Ukraine itself, and that Ukraine had “independently mined and blew up the building for the picture.”

“While the enemy invents senseless theories, Ukrainian investigators and experts at the impact site are step by step documenting this crime and gathering evidence,” the CCD stated. Preliminary findings confirmed the building was struck by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile.

The Narrative Was Pre-Planted

What distinguishes this campaign from routine post-strike deflection is its timing. On May 13 — the day before the Darnytskyi strike — Russian state news agency RIA Novosti published a statement by Yulia Zhdanova, head of Russia’s delegation to security negotiations in Vienna, warning that the West was allegedly preparing a “bloody staging” in Ukraine.

Zhdanova, speaking at the 1,136th session of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation, alleged that NATO representatives had held meetings with film directors, screenwriters, and producers in Brussels, Los Angeles, and Paris ahead of a planned meeting with the British Writers’ Guild. She framed this as evidence that “NATO states may again be preparing for another bloody staging — for example, in the style of the April 2022 staging in Bucha.”

The statement contained no evidence. But it served a clear preparatory function: by publicly accusing the West of planning a fabricated atrocity the day before one of the deadliest Russian strikes on a Kyiv residential building in months, Russian state media pre-loaded the narrative that would be deployed the following day across Telegram channels.

This pattern — establishing a “staged provocation” framework before a major strike, then activating it immediately afterward — is consistent with documented Russian information operation methodology in which state outlets set the interpretive frame and anonymous Telegram channels distribute the specific claims.

Telegram as Primary Disinformation Infrastructure

Notably, the three core disinformation narratives documented by the CCD — “Ukrainian air defense caused it,” “staged performance,” and “Ukraine mined and blew up the building for the picture” — were absent from Russian state media websites and European proxy outlets. They circulated through anonymous Russian Telegram channels, where content is difficult to trace and posts are frequently deleted after the initial distribution wave. 

This is consistent with how the Kremlin manages sensitive disinformation operations: state media establish the interpretive frame through attributable statements by named officials, while deniable Telegram channels distribute the specific false claims. The attribution chain is deliberately broken.

The CCD, which monitors Russian Telegram propaganda in real time, documented the claims before they could be fully erased — confirming the operational sequence even where the original posts are no longer accessible.

The Scale of the Attack

The disinformation campaign unfolded against the backdrop of one of the most severe Russian air attacks on Kyiv since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Russian forces launched more than 670 strike drones and 56 missiles against Ukraine on the night of May 13 to 14, with Kyiv as the primary target. Search and rescue operations at the Darnytskyi site ran for more than 28 hours, with crews removing over 3,000 cubic metres of debris. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko confirmed 48 people were injured in addition to the 24 killed. Nearly 400 requests for psychological assistance were filed in the aftermath of the attack.

“No cynical justifications, absurd theories, or information manipulations will help the aggressor conceal yet another war crime against humanity,” the Center for Countering Disinformation concluded.