The Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), the unit within Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council dedicated to exposing hostile information operations, has issued an urgent warning about a renewed surge in Russian propaganda centered on the fabricated claim that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) operates secret prisons where civilians are subjected to torture and abuse. According to the CCD, Russian state-run media platforms have begun circulating a coordinated series of reports featuring what appears to be a staged testimonial from a woman described as a “volunteer from Kramatorsk.” In these reports, the woman claims that during the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) in eastern Ukraine, she was detained by SBU officers, held in what she describes as an “SBU basement,” and subjected to torture, psychological intimidation, and threats directed at her family. The CCD emphasized that this latest narrative is not a spontaneous outburst of independent journalism but rather another iteration of a well-worn disinformation template that has been systematically deployed by the Kremlin since 2014. The goal, the Center stressed, is to manufacture the appearance of evidence that Ukrainian authorities are systematically abusing civilians, and thereby to delegitimize Ukraine’s defense of its sovereignty and territorial integrity in the eyes of both domestic and international audiences.
The CCD’s statement details how Russian propaganda outlets are now aggressively promoting this pseudo-testimonial as if it were a genuine confession from a victim of state violence. The woman’s story, which has no verifiable corroboration, is being treated by Russian media as evidence of a widespread pattern of secret detention and torture by Ukrainian security forces. The Center notes that such emotional, highly personalized narratives have been a staple of Russian disinformation campaigns for almost a decade. Since 2014, Moscow has continuously generated stories of alleged “basements,” “dungeons,” and “torture chambers” operated by the SBU and other Ukrainian institutions in an effort to establish a narrative framework in which Ukraine is a failed, repressive state that must be “saved” by Russia. The CCD pointedly observes that despite the volume and frequency of these allegations, none of them have ever been confirmed by credible international human rights organizations, monitoring missions, or established investigative outlets. International bodies have repeatedly concluded that these stories lack evidentiary support and appear to be manufactured for political purposes. Rather than being deterred by this lack of confirmation, Russian propagandists continue to recycle and adapt the same storylines, changing names, locations, and minor details to fit the current news cycle, while remaining wholly dependent on fabricated interviews, dubious witnesses, and untraceable sources.
According to the Center, this persistent return to the “secret prisons” theme is a deliberate component of the Kremlin’s broader strategic communication doctrine. The CCD underscored that “the systematic return to fabrications about ‘secret prisons’ is part of the Kremlin’s strategy to provide a propaganda justification for its armed aggression against Ukraine and the occupation of our territories.” Through these false narratives, Russia seeks to project the image of itself as a protective and humanitarian force, the so-called “defender and savior” of the Donbas population from what it falsely characterizes as “Ukraine’s crimes.” This propaganda logic is rooted in the technique of inversion: Moscow, which has itself occupied parts of Ukrainian territory and imposed its control through force, attempts to recast Ukraine as the aggressor and itself as the liberator. By circulating claims of Ukrainian atrocities, the Kremlin hopes to blur moral clarity and create a false moral equivalence between the aggressor and the defender. The Center warned that such narratives are not harmless myths; they are designed to lay the groundwork for further military action, to justify the continuing occupation of Ukrainian land, and to destabilize the Ukrainian state from within by sowing distrust of law enforcement and military institutions.
The CCD also highlighted a stark contrast that is essential for understanding the broader information landscape: while Ukraine is accused without evidence of running secret prisons, there is abundant documented evidence of torture, executions, enforced disappearances, and systematic ill-treatment of civilians in the temporarily occupied territories that are controlled by Russian forces. The Center pointed to numerous cases of civilians being detained, beaten, electrocuted, suffocated, and otherwise physically and psychologically abused in detention centers operated by Russian and Russian-backed forces. These abuses have been reported by international organizations, human rights monitors, and investigative journalists, and they have been documented in the occupied parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea. The testimonies of survivors from these occupied areas describe a brutal reality of arbitrary rule, humiliation, and violence that stands in direct contradiction to Russia’s self-serving propaganda about “protecting” the people of Donbas. The Center therefore urged the public to be deeply skepticism of materials originating from Russian state media and to refuse to accept any narrative that has not been confirmed by independent and reputable human rights organizations. It stressed that the proliferation of fabricated stories about Ukrainian “crimes” must be understood as an effort to deflect attention away from the genuine and overwhelming evidence of Russian atrocities being committed in the territories under Moscow’s control.
Beyond the revived “secret prisons” narrative, the CCD also flagged a series of related disinformation operations currently circulating on Russian Telegram channels, which are being used to amplify panic and confusion among Ukrainian audiences. These channels have launched a new wave of false claims about an alleged mass mobilization of women in Ukraine, accompanied by fabricated photographs of fake draft notices and screenshots of manipulated correspondence. The CCD stated categorically that these materials do not correspond to reality and are being spread with the intention of stoking social tension, undermining trust in Ukrainian authorities, and creating the impression that the country is collapsing under the pressure of military recruitment. In addition, a video has been actively distributed online in which Verkhovna Rada Chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk allegedly makes a vulgar call for “training Ukrainians with a stick.” This video is completely fabricated; according to the CCD, it was created using artificial intelligence tools and bears clear signs of an attempted deepfake. The appearance of such sophisticated synthetic media marks an increasingly dangerous phase in the information conflict, as advances in technology allow hostile actors to place fabricated statements into the mouths of real political figures with alarming realism. The simultaneous release of these different types of disinformation—emotional fake testimonials, bogus documents, and AI-generated videos—illustrates the full-spectrum approach that Russia has adopted in its hybrid war against Ukraine.
The CCD’s renewed warnings come at a time when the information battlefield is just as critical to the outcome of the war as the kinetic one. Disinformation, if left unchallenged, can erode public confidence in institutions, fracture social cohesion, and influence the perceptions of decision-makers and citizens in Western countries who are weighing continued support for Ukraine. The Center’s statement is ultimately an appeal to media consumers to exercise constant vigilance and to check every alarming claim against trusted, independent sources before accepting it as fact. It is also a reminder that the stories circulating in the Russian media ecosystem are not the accidental exaggerations of poorly informed reporters; they are intentionally crafted weapons in a larger strategic campaign to justify Moscow’s brutal invasion and occupation, to delegitimize Ukraine’s right to self-defense, and to present the aggressor as a reluctant protector forced into action by the alleged misdeeds of its victim. The persistence and adaptability of these narratives, despite years of debunking, demonstrate that the Kremlin is prepared to repeat lies endlessly until they are accepted as truth by enough people. The only effective countermeasure, the CCD insists, is a combination of institutional vigilance, responsible journalism, independent fact-checking, and public media literacy. By refusing to absorb unverified stories, by demanding evidence, and by recognizing the tactics of disinformation, audiences can disrupt the machine that Russian propaganda depends on and help preserve an honest record of what is truly happening in Ukraine.
