At the beginning of September 2023, a document allegedly signed by the Russian Minister of Defense about a new wave of mobilization was widely circulated on the Internet. We have checked whether there is any reason to consider this order to be genuine.
A photo that has gone viral on the Internet allegedly shows an order from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to organize the mobilization of 200,000 citizens no later than November 1, 2023. On September 4 and 5, with a note that the authenticity has not been confirmed, a photo of the document was shared, in particular, by Telegram channels Nexta Live (327,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), UNIAN (296,000) and "Russia 24/7» (28,000), many small channels, as well as row Ukrainian Media. Preserved traces distribution of photos on VKontakte, but the original posts were deleted at the time of writing the analysis. The popularity of the document caused a reaction at the state level: on September 5 in the media appeared many refutations from Russian officials who called the order of the Russian Ministry of Defense fake And psychological operation of the Ukrainian special services.
Several facts indicate that the document is not real. Firstly, the viral photo shows an order numbered 463 allegedly issued on September 14, and the last order at the time of distribution of the picture, published on the website of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, was signed by Shoigu on August 29 and is numbered 558. Secondly, the filling of the header of the document with a blue pen and Shoigu’s signature, written in black ink, raises doubts. Moreover, the signature itself differs from that available in official sources.
Thirdly, in all studied “Verified” real In orders, the month in the dating was typed in when preparing the document, and not entered manually. Fourthly, broken subordination - such an order would be addressed to the heads of military districts, and not to representatives of military commissariats. Finally approved rules the drafting of such a document implies that it must refer to a specific clause of the federal law “On Defense”, and not to the law in principle.
In addition, the very appearance of such an order seems illogical. The Russian Ministry of Defense has no need to legally justify the “additional” mobilization: signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2022 decree about mobilization continues act. By order of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, it is possible to mobilize any required number of citizens subject to the decree, and an order from the Minister of Defense is not required for this.
The first recorded “Verified” case of publishing a photo on Telegram was an entry in the Ukrainian Telegram channel “Brothers Yakovlevi"(13,000 views), posted on September 4 at 21:35 Moscow time. The photo from this post with a watermark then ended up in the UNIAN channel (22:11), and with the erased watermark - in other large channels. In publications on VKontakte discovered by the Telegram channel “War on fakes"(its authors pose as fact checkers, but do not follow the basic IFCN principles and in reality they mainly do justification official Kremlin narratives and dissemination disinformation), an earlier time is indicated - from 16:00 on the same day. Searching for “Verified” using key phrases indirectly confirms that the spread began precisely in city public pages with advertisements on this social network. Since the posts have already been deleted, it is not possible to discover the original source of the photo.
Thus, all evidence indicates that Shoigu’s order, which went viral and caused a lot of discussion and official refutations, was deliberately falsified. It does not comply with the rules for drawing up orders of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, nor with the numbering of orders for 2023.
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