{"id":285390,"date":"2026-07-31T16:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/investigator.org.ua\/?p=285390"},"modified":"2026-07-31T16:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:56:13","slug":"bolnye-vydumki-kak-rossiyane-sozdayut-fejkovye-epidemii-na-hersonshhine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/investigator.org.ua\/en\/publication\/south-articles\/285390\/","title":{"rendered":"Sick Fabrications: How Russians Fake Epidemics in Kherson Region"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Russian propagandists love horrors. When they fail to frighten Ukrainians by their rockets and drones, they made up deadly epidemics. Typhus, tuberculosis, anthrax and plague. According to Russian media, this is the short list of diseases Kherson residents have suffered en masse during last period. We will focus on these narratives and uncover their fake character in this article. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Russian conscious campaign targeting Kherson residents with fakes about deadly epidemics was launched in 2023. Epidemics of typhoid fever have been favorite fake of Russian propagandists. It immediately led to more complicated disease \u2013 cholera. Propagandists announced its beginning on liberated territories of Kherson region after the flood caused by destruction of Kakhovka Dam. As they claimed, the disease spread quickly and over twenty residents of Kherson died from cholera.<\/p>\n

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Russian media were filled in with headlines like \u00abhorrible death\u00bb, \u00abconcealing the tragedy\u00bb and \u00abthe treachery of the Kyiv regime\u00bb. In the early days of this fabricated epidemic, various hostile media outlets attributed it to a shortage of drinking water in the city, even though there was actually no such shortage. At the same time, doctors-collaborators began reassuring the population on occupied Left Bank of Dnipro, claiming that the imaginary epidemic was unlikely to spread to the occupied territories of the region, since \u00abthe world\u2019s best Russian medicine\u00bb was being actively implemented there.<\/p>\n

What happened next could become the plot for Hollywood comedy. Being frightened by non-existent Kherson cholera, the authorities of several Southern regions of Russia decided to conduct training on combating this infectious disease. Russian occupation \u00abgovernment\u00bb of Crimea announced that Kherson water, \u00abpolluted by cholera\u00bb, could not reach Crimea because after the explosion of Kakhovka Dam North Crimean water channel did not function and stayed dry.<\/p>\n

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The Russian Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare created special mobile \u00abanti-epidemiological team of doctors\u00bb on occupied Left Bank of Dnipro, equipped with \u00abmodern unique equipment\u00bb, not seen before. Local Telegram channels in Russian Kuban reported first cases of \u00abKherson cholera\u00bb but their information has not been confirmed.<\/p>\n

Russians could not stop their \u00abinformation epidemic\u00bb and went further. Russian authorities addressed the World Health Organization with inquiry about \u00abepidemic in Kherson\u00bb. The WHO Headquarters answered that there has been no cholera in Kherson for last fifty years. Russian propagandists accused the WHO of lies and cooperation with \u00abthe Kyiv regime\u00bb.<\/p>\n

Russians insisted on finding \u00abresponsible\u00bb for non-existent infectious epidemic. As a result, Kremlin propaganda accused American capitalists and intelligence services of \u00abdeclining collective West\u00bb\u2026<\/p>\n

In June 2024, Vice-Speaker of Russian State Duma Irina Yarovaya announced during the second fake epidemic of cholera that \u00abthe epidemic\u00bb was related to biological experiments of Pentagon on Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.<\/p>\n

Russian media immediately published \u00abdetails\u00bb obtained from \u00abtheir own trustworthy sources\u00bb. According to their reports, American airplanes had to disperse cholera over Russian positions at night in Kherson region but they erroneously did it over Ukrainian liberated territories and infected Ukrainians. Americans grew deadly pathogens nearby, in legendary \u00abNATO biological laboratories\u00bb.<\/p>\n

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The topic of fake biological laboratories is so prominent in Russian propaganda that separate article can be written about it. But we will return to unhappy Kherson where cholera and typhoid fever have not been the only diseases hitting the city.<\/p>\n

In August 2024, Russian propagandists declared that epidemic of plague started in Kherson region, \u00ablike in the Middle Ages\u00bb. It should be emphasized that there have been no outbreaks of plague in Ukraine since the beginning of the XX century. In few weeks, propagandists announced the epidemic of tuberculosis caused by Ukrainian troops, as they stressed.<\/p>\n

Since the summer of 2024, non-existent epidemics became one of favorite topics of Russian propagandists. Besides cholera, local residents massively \u00abdied\u00bb from AIDS, plague and typhoid fever. There were also outbreaks of exotic diseases, for example, \u00abtrench fever\u00bb. Last year Kherson residents also \u00abdied\u00bb from the rabies. As Russians persuaded, supermarkets and bazaars of Kherson sold the meat infected by the rabies. Yes, there were a few cases of the rabies with animals in several villages of liberated Kherson region but Russian propaganda turned them into apocalyptic catastrophe.<\/p>\n

As Russians said, these photos demonstrated how Ukrainian soldiers burnt down villages with their residents and domestic animals to stop the spread of rabies. \u00abAngry Bandera proponents\u00bb ignored complaints of peasants and turned their settlements into ashes.<\/p>\n

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But these photos were taken from social media accounts of the 121st<\/sup> brigade of the Territorial Defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Its soldiers were trained in gas masks because Russian troops often used chemical weapons forbidden by international conventions. It is clear that the training has not been connected to the outbreak of rabies.<\/p>\n

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At the beginning of 2026, Russians invented the outbreak of anthrax. They claimed that an employee of the Ukrainian institute of irrigated agriculture was arrested for \u00abnegligence\u00bb. Though, the institute had nothing to do with cattle breeding, stopped working in 2022 whereas its premises were destroyed by Russian shelling. Despite these obvious discrepancies, Russians kept claiming that bodies of local residents were covered by blisters and ulcers, and Ukrainian policemen placed under quarantine several communities and sent infected residents under surveillance for medical treatment in Lviv.<\/p>\n

Why Russian propaganda distributes this nonsense? The main purpose is to destabilize situation on liberated territories of Kherson region. Russians claim that Ukrainian authorities are indifferent towards Kherson residents who \u00abdie\u00bb from plague and tuberculosis whereas Ukrainian medicine is not able to cope with large number of infected people. An experience of \u00abKherson epidemics\u00bb demonstrate that in Russian reality infections can exist without pathogens, epidemics \u2013 without infected people and deaths \u2013 without bodies. Russian propaganda is not based on real material and empirical evidence. Its basis is human emotions and feelings, fear, hatred and despair. Person is frightened the most by something he or she could not see or feel physically. That is why Russian propagandists love so much imagined viruses and bacteria.<\/p>\n