Following the explosions at refineries in Romania and Hungary, owned by companies with Russian ties, pro-Kremlin propaganda networks have launched a new disinformation campaign aimed at undermining Western support for Ukraine, according to an analysis published by Kyiv Independent.
The actual incident at the Lukoil refinery in Ploiești, followed by an explosion at a similar facility in Hungary, was used as a pretext to spread false information about a third fire at a refinery in Slovakia – an incident that, according to the company Slovnaft, never actually occurred.
Obscure platforms, such as the CZNews Info website, have published vague articles about the supposed fire, without mentioning Ukraine, but pro-Russian networks quickly picked up the story and turned it into a coordinated campaign accusing Kyiv of "sabotage" and "drone attacks" on European energy infrastructure.
According to the monitoring company LetsData, the false narrative spread intensively on social networks – especially on Facebook, but also on Telegram and X (formerly Twitter) – being amplified by accounts from the Czech, Russian, Slovak, and English spaces.
At the same time, some Ukrainian media sources picked up the news story without mentioning the false connection to Ukraine, inadvertently contributing to the confusion.
Moscow has framed all these incidents — both real and invented — within a broader narrative, suggesting that Ukraine is attacking oil facilities in countries that still receive Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline, such as Hungary and Slovakia.
The purpose of these manipulations is twofold: to test NATO's reaction and to weaken European support for Ukraine by spreading fear and distrust among the population.
Alina Alieksieieva, deputy at the Ukrainian Government Center for Countering Disinformation, says that Russia is "trying to sow fear in European societies and reduce support for Ukraine" by using real incidents, such as the explosion in Ploiești, to weave them with fabricated stories and turn them into informational weapons.