In mid-July, a series of false messages began spreading rapidly across North Ossetia, causing visible concern among residents. The main channel was WhatsApp, which remains one of the republic’s key sources of information.
One of the most widely discussed fakes concerned an alleged program called “Life Everywhere”. The message cited a supposed “decree” by regional head Sergey Menyaylo, claiming that large families from North Ossetia would be relocated to the zone of the special military operation and to the Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod regions, which have been under shelling for several years. The situation escalated to the point that the Regional Management Center issued an official denial.
New rumors followed: first about water contamination in Beslan, then about an outbreak of gastrointestinal infection in the Alagir district. The regional Housing and Utilities Ministry said Beslan’s water met all standards and described the epidemic claims as false and fabricated with the help of digital technologies.
Other reports circulated in parallel: temporary checkpoints on the Georgian Military Highway to inspect vehicles, a supposed “cholera outbreak,” and even the renaming of Komintern Street in Beslan after Ruslan Aushev, the first president of Ingushetia.
That last version may have seemed plausible to some because Aushev did in fact play a heroic role in helping free children from the seized school in Beslan in 2004. That fact likely made the false story more convincing.
Local authorities say the messages were spread by Ukrainian intelligence services in order to sow panic and destabilize the republic. Pro-government Telegram channels wrote that Ossetia had found itself “on the front line of the information war.”
However, the article says residents are far more troubled by the actions of officials themselves than by rumors about cholera or checkpoints. In particular, it became known at the end of last year that from July 1 utility tariffs in the republic would rise substantially, by an average of 19%.