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This article was first published by Truthmeter.mk (North Macedonia), within the framework of Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Project.
The Telegram disinformation channel Nov Postzapaden Multipolaren Svet [New Post-Western Multipolar World] is neither new nor influential on its own. However, it is worrying that it has recently been recruited as a news source by the Macedonian branch of the Russian propaganda network Pravda. Its disinformation is now being spread with the help of the network, which can contaminate our online space, the artificial intelligence tools that draw data from it, and so on
Author: Vangel Bashevski
Pravda means truth in Russian, but, ironically, in this case it is the name of a Russian internet network, created to spread falsehoods, disinformation, and propaganda.
In principle, Pravda is a single web domain (simply a website): news-pravda.com, which also has many subdomains (subsites), which are branches intended for various countries such as: the USA (usa.news-pravda.com), Britain (uk.news-pravda.com), France (france.news-pravda.com), and so on, or branches for certain language zones: francophone (francais.news-pravda.com), German (deutsch.news-pravda.com), Spanish (spanish.news-pravda.com), etc.
In the latter case, the scope is wider, because, for example, the content in Spanish will also be placed in South America, and not only in Spain. Pravda is organized according to a territorial or linguistic principle, though there are some exceptions to this. For each subdomain, corresponding channels on the social network Telegram are also available, such as: t.me/pravdanewsusa, t.me/pravdanewsuk, etc.
Superficially, Pravda’s sites are not popular, and those Telegram channels don’t have many followers, but the point of Pravda is not for anyone to follow that content in the standard way.
The sites in that network do not have traditional editorial offices and do not engage in journalism at all. Instead, they are designed to automatically extract (dis)information from (pro)Russian sources and translate it. Then, with technical tricks, it aggressively spreads across the Internet, boosting its visibility in search engines like Google. It can also falsely present itself as a credible source in encyclopedias like Wikipedia, which in turn will affect artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, that draw on such sources. As a result, if someone searches for information with such tools, the result will be contaminated with Russian propaganda.
The Pravda Network in North Macedonia
The Pravda network’s target is also North Macedonia, for which the subdomain is: north-macedonia.news-pravda.com, and the associated Telegram channel is: t.me/pravdamkcom.
The site offers content in Macedonian, but it is not yet “polished,” so there are some that have not even been translated from Russian.
Each site on the network draws data from (pro)Russian sources, so, for example, the American branch draws mostly from TASS and similar agencies, and the Macedonian branch—from the Telegram channel of the Russian embassy and the channel Nov Postzapaden Multipolaren Svet [New Post-Western Multipolar World]. Although it ranks second as a source for the Macedonian Pravda, we will focus on it because we have already written about the propaganda activities of the embassy.
The Nov Postzapaden Multipolaren Svet [New Post-Western Multipolar World] channel was founded on the 11th of April, 2023 (first post here), but, according to analysts, it became a source for the Macedonian Pravda only recently, on the 10th of February, 2025. This indicates a relatively new propaganda campaign.
On the surface, the channel does not appear influential, with only 304 followers—too few even by modest Macedonian standards, but since joining the Pravda network, it has been spreading disinformation and therefore has the potential for greater harmful influence. The channel, for example, is promoted on social networks by Zoran Jovanchev of the pro-Russian Rodina party (examples: here, here, here, and here).
Examples of disinformation and manipulation
Let’s highlight some of the disinformation and manipulation coming from that Telegram channel. On April 18, 2025, it posted a clip accompanied by the following false description:
Special paratrooper elite unit captured #Kursk–Russia
We wrote about that clip back in March 21, 2025. It is suspicious and has been circulating online since April 4, 2022. Ukrainian forces invaded Russia’s Kursk Oblast only on August 6, 2024, so the clip could not have been filmed there. A caption in Serbian has also been added to it, which reads:
Surrender of NATO forces
There were no NATO forces in the Kursk region. Their incursion into Russia could have caused a nuclear war, and the UN and all relevant world media outlets would have sounded the alarm, but nothing like that happened.
The channel also released a clip of a captured Ukrainian soldier showing a document he thought was a Canadian health insurance policy, but it was actually a consent to donate organs, allegedly proving that Ukrainian authorities and their Western partners are deceiving Ukrainian soldiers in order to seize and sell their organs.
Fact checkers say that anyone can download that document (form) and print it, so it proves nothing, and it is a consent for organ donation for residents of the Canadian province of Ontario, and only if the donor’s death occurs there and if they have a health card there. The captured Ukrainian soldier (if he is in fact a Ukrainian soldier, not a Russian actor) does not meet those conditions, so he could not donate organs with that form even if he wanted to.
Even more absurd is the following “news” that the channel announced: The World Economic Forum has decided to “ban natural reproduction” and intends to create “laboratories for raising children in artificial wombs” and their “genetic modification” so that they are “psychophysically suitable” for the elite that rules the world. This is an ordinary conspiracy theory, which is not worth delving into, especially since Truthmeter.mk has already dealt with it: here and here.
In the following case, we do not have fake news, but rather an exaggeration of true news:
ISOLATED RUSSIA?
A record number of world leaders will travel to Moscow to participate in the Victory Parade on May 9th:
Then follows a list of those foreign leaders, which tells us that Russia is not completely isolated, but also that there are not many big names among the guests. For comparison, in the past, the parade was attended by guests from the United States, Britain, France, and other powerful and influential countries, and in 2010 their armed forces even paraded in the middle of Moscow alongside those of Russia.
Now the guests will be the leaders of Burkina Faso, Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuela, and Serbia. The list also includes Milorad Dodik , who is not even the leader of an independent state. As usual, most of the guests are from former Soviet republics such as Belarus, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and so on, some of which are themselves isolated or underdeveloped.
The attention on the list is drawn to Slovak leader Robert Fico, the only guest from an EU and NATO member state, but he is a lone exception, and even he is not a significant global politician. Among the guests, only the leader of China and a few others stand out.
Speaking of China, the channel also released a clip that talks about its alleged “peacefulness” compared to “Western imperialists and colonialists,” but that has nothing to do with reality.
China is also an imperialist power, and in the 1950s it annexed Tibet, which it oppresses and assimilates, as it does to the ethnic Uyghurs. China then participated in the Korean War, in 1962 it also fought against India, in 1969 against the USSR, and in 1979 it invaded Vietnam, with which it now threatens Taiwan. China has now also held provocative naval exercises near Australia, not to mention the various Chinese dynasties and their wars and conquests.
Totalitarian speech in which a cult of personality permeates
Finally, we would like to highlight probably the most propagandistic post on this channel:
Zelensky does not understand that we are all Putin. Russia is Putin. Russia’s past is Putin. Russia’s future is Putin. BRICS is Putin. China is Putin. Iran is Putin. Putin is not an individual—he is a historical phenomenon.
Therefore, Putin’s Russia will never be defeated.
This sounds like totalitarian speech that exudes a cult of personality and celebrates absolutism, tyranny, and single-mindedness based on the principle of “I am the state,” as if Russia were the private property of Vladimir Putin. That is the “bright future” that pro-Russian propagandists are preparing for us.
But they cannot know what Russia really thinks and feels, for the simple reason that under Putin’s quarter-century regime it cannot freely express itself, and those who dare to do so are imprisoned and killed, such as Alexei Navalny, Boris Nemtsov, and Anna Politkovskaya. About a million people have left Russia precisely because of Putin. They are also Russia, and an important part of it, and among them there are prominent intellectuals, artists, athletes, etc.
Furthermore, Putin can indeed be defeated. This was seen in the crucial battles for Kyiv and Kharkiv in February-May 2022, but also on November 11, 2022, when Putin lost Kherson, the only regional center he managed to capture in the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Putin failed to achieve the set goals for the so-called denazification (occupying Kyiv and overthrowing and lustrating the government there, which he falsely describes as “Nazi”) and for the so-called demilitarization (Ukraine is even more militarized and has even entered Putin’s home, the Kursk Oblast of Russia, which was an unprecedented embarrassment for his superpower). After all, it is not clear what kind of invincibility the post is talking about.
Contrary to popular belief, relations between the Russians and China are far from ideal, since unresolved historical scores simmer beneath them, and although there are powerful countries like China in BRICS, among the members of that economic alliance, candidates for membership in it or its partners there are many developing countries, which have countless problems. For comparison, Russia used to be in the group of the world’s most developed countries, the G8, so this represents a drastic degradation for it.
