The cartoons unearthed by the BIC refer to the events of the summer of 2023, particularly the deployment of Wagner Group personnel to Belarus following the attempted June mutiny of Yevgeny Prigozhin in Russia. The pictures show the danger of the Lukashenko-Wagner Group alliance for Western countries.
One of the pictures has the creation date 17 July 2023 in the file name. In it, Lukashenko is holding three nuclear bombs on a national decorative towel and saying a phrase in Ukrainian that translates as "Wagner, welcome to Belarus!"
There's another cartoon with two versions – one with a caption and one without. It shows a pig with a trident running away from a bear with a blowtorch bearing the logo of the Wagner Group. In the background, you see Aleksandr Lukashenko with a charcoal grill and a pack of coal.
"Going on a picnic? Don't forget the kebab!" reads the caption below.
The file names "photo_2023-07-20_10-47-50" and "photo_2023-07-20_10-50-15" indicate that the images were created on 20 July 2023. The cartoon was posted the following day by an unidentified commentator on the Russian edition of Voyennoye Obozreniye's (Military Review) website. The comment was left under the article "In case of aggression against Belarus, Russia will respond with all means at its disposal". Subsequently, on 15 August, the image was published on the social media platform VKontakte.
The file titled "659_SPEC_G_Wagner in Belarus" contains an image of a soldier wearing a NATO helmet asking to be quiet at the European Union-Belarus border. The caption beneath it reads: "Pst! Da ist Wagner!" ("Shh! It's Wagner!").
The Social Design Agency (SDA) is sanctioned by the EU and the US. The project is led by Russian political technologist Ilya Gambashidze. An FBI official has accused the SDA of working for the Kremlin and named Sergei Kirienko, the first deputy of the Russian Presidential Executive Office, as their handler. According to the leak, SDA employees have produced and spread fakes on social media, including forgeries of official Armed Forces of Ukraine command documents, and have created memes and cartoons to promote pro-Putin narratives.
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