Are the videos calling for gamers and gays to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine true?

In the fall of 2023, two videos went viral on social networks, in which the Ukrainian army allegedly calls on teenage gamers and representatives of the LGBT community to join its ranks. We checked whether these are real propaganda videos.

Gamers

At the end of September 2023, a 33-second video gained popularity, which was most often used in numerous Telegram channels signed as follows: “Women are already being recruited into the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it’s the turn of teenage gamers. We are waiting for the elderly." Sometimes at the end added the phrase “until the last Ukrainian.” In the channel "Skabeeva"(70,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) clarified that Ukraine is also preparing to mobilize cybersportsmen, and in "Special Operations Z"(77,000) reported that the reason for recruiting gamers was the high losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, because of which Kyiv allegedly took extreme measures. Similar publications appeared in the channels “Live broadcast"(691,000 views), "Truthfulness"(209,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(125,000), "Bullet"(124,000), "Scott Ritter on Telegram"(109,000), "Federation"(86,000), "I'm aware"(74,000), "Cartridge" (68,000), "Yakov Kedmi"(67,000), "Truth of Russia"(65,000), "Ax | Policy" (55,000), "Mriya"(48,000) and TG Team Russia (44,000), as well as in public pages on VKontakte (examples here, here And here), V "Zene"and on some newswebsites. Also, viral video demonstrated on the air of the “Big Game” program on Channel One: the presenter said that in Ukraine the video had become “perhaps the most serious news” and that it was “actively played” on Ukrainian television.

The viral video shows young men seemingly playing computer games. At the same time, the video demonstrates how slicing actual recordings from the war zone, many of which were used in musical clip to the song “The Heart Is Still Beating” from Marietta, as well as footage from various video games - among them, for example, Call of Duty: Warzone (at 00:04 mark), Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (00:22) and Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Fallen Empire (00:25). At the end of the video (at the 00:26 mark) text appears, part of which is voiced: “You are no longer a child. The games are over. Join the Armed Forces of Ukraine. ZSU.Team".

ZSU.Team - this is the official website of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine with information on how to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, “Verified” was unable to find either the video we were interested in, or its mention on any resources related to the Ukrainian military department. We also looked for publications about gamer advertising in the Ukrainian media, but found only refutations - several publications, including the agency "Ukrinform", they called the video a fake. Ukrainian fact checkers from the Gwara Media project found out, that the viral video is based on an advertisement for a wireless computer mouse from Logitech G, in which three professional e-sportsmen from France starred (Shox) and Denmark (Bjergsen And Zven). The original video was posted on YouTube back in August 2018.

Your refutation released and the Ukrainian fact-checking site “No nonsense”, which then referred Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security of Ukraine. The analysis, however, claims that Russian propagandists only distorted the meaning of the supposedly real video - “one of a number of similar ones developed as part of the Mobilization information campaign.” In a conversation with Verified, the editor-in-chief of Without Nonsense, Alexander Gorokhovsky, said that he also considers the video about gamers to be fake, even though the text states the opposite. According to him, the analysis is focused on how Russian pro-government media manipulate real motivational videos from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense program. It was not possible to find a verified video about gamers among them “Verified”; the corresponding link in the material of the “No Nonsense” project was also not provided.

“Verified” tried to find the possible primary source of the “propaganda” video, and, according to the TGStat service, the earliest post with the video and keywords appeared on September 20 at 13:22 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Bloodseeker 2.0"(76,000 views). Moreover, after a couple of hours in the canal U_G_M (22,000 views) the same video was posted with the mark “from a subscriber”, and the caption said: “Such advertising appears on Ukrainian gaming sites.” However, no names, links, or screenshots were provided.

It turns out that there is no evidence on the Internet of showing this propaganda video about gamers as an advertisement on Ukrainian resources. The edited recording, which originally appeared in the Russian-language segment of social networks, consists of various videos that are posted in the public domain.

Let us add that in the summer of 2023, a similar fake was distributed on Telegram. Then in Russian channels, including “Rita Ebzeeva"(111,000 views), "Alexander Semchenko"(91,000), "Karnaukhov"(26,000), PeachBlossom (14,000) and Gury__mood (10,000), it was reported that at the end of the Ukrainian version of the trailer for the game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, they allegedly call for joining the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Fact checkers from the Vox Ukraine project found outthat in fact the video being distributed was edited by unknown persons and passed off as a Ukrainian trailer.

Gays

At the end of October, another supposedly Ukrainian propaganda video gained popularity, this time calling for members of the LGBT community to join the army. Often it accompanied the following description: “Advertising of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for gays. Apparently there aren’t enough women and old people anymore.” Also reported, that this advertisement of the contract service was filmed by order of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Similar posts about the video were published in Telegram channels, including “Live broadcast"(697,000 views), "Sanya in Florida"(382,000), "KB" (248,000), "Uncle Slava"(212,000), "Truthfulness"(196,000), "Putin on Telegram"(166,000), Voblya (150,000), "Bottle"(137,000), "Rhymes and punches 18+"(101,000), "Tough of the day"(91,000), "Bloodseeker 2.0"(85,000), "Alexander Semchenko"(84,000), "Petya the First"(83,000), "Federation"(81,000), "Special Operation Z"(81,000), "Fox News Russia"(69,000), "Mislivets Egor"(67,000), "Cartridge"(66,000), "Truth of Russia"(62,000), "Sexton" (51,000), "Russia 2.0" (50,000), "What happened?"(40,000), "DPR Info" (37,000), "Denazifier" (35,000), "Eye of War 18+"(28,000), "Shark"(23,000), U_G_M (18,000) and "Pavel Onishchenko"(15,000), as well as on VKontakte (examples here, here, here And here), "Odnoklassniki" And "Zene" Among the media and news sites about advertising they wrote “Arguments and facts", "Constantinople", "Podolyak", "Morning south", Live24 And other resources.

The first half of the 10-second video shows two young couples kissing, while the second half shows footage of military personnel. A man’s voice sounds in the background: “It doesn’t matter at all whether you love women or men. It is important that you love Ukraine. Join the Armed Forces of Ukraine." At the end of the video, the name of the ZSU.Team website appears again, but this time in rainbow colors. Moreover, the letters are painted in seven different colors, and the classic flag of the LGBT community is traditionally consists of of six stripes. As in previous cases, this advertisement could not be found on any resources associated with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, as well as in the Ukrainian media.

“Verified” conducted a reverse search on the screenshots of the viral video and found that the first half of it with kissing couples was based on a video from the YouTube channel i-D. published back on October 27, 2020. The original recording lasts almost 10 minutes and is called “LGBT+ youth fighting for the “Polish Stonewall”” - a report from Warsaw dedicated to local LGBT activists. Previously, August 7, 2020, Warsaw police arrested non-binary activist Margot and placed her in pre-trial detention. In response to the actions of the authorities on the streets came out protesters, almost fifty more people were detained. Some publications called the action “Polish Stonewall” by analogy with Stonewall uprising - a series of riots and demonstrations against a police raid at the American gay bar Stonewall Inn in 1969, which began the active phase of the struggle for LGBT rights in the United States.

The second half of the video uses personnel from a real propaganda video called “The Ballad of Infantry” is a social advertising Ukrainian Ground Forces, published back in October 2016. The project was implemented jointly by the consulting company K&K Group and the creative agency Tabasco, according to the creators, entirely on a volunteer basis without government funding.

The earliest post with an alleged advertisement about gays that “Verified” could find appeared on October 31 at 14:22 in the Telegram channel “Ne.Sugar"(267,000 views), which mentioned in our analyzes dozens of times. Moreover, just two minutes later the same video was published in the channel “Shaman Rahu"(3600) with the note "from a subscriber from Kyiv." This channel has been done many times was becoming the primary source of various kinds of fakes, some of which were also allegedly sent by anonymous subscribers.

Thus, “Verified” was unable to find any connections between the video we were interested in and the Ukrainian authorities. The video, as in the case of advertising about gamers, consists of various videos that were posted in the public domain several years ago. However, we cannot say with complete confidence that both viral advertisements were never shown on any Ukrainian websites. However, none of the publications we found provided any evidence of this.

Cover photo: social networks / collage “Verified”

Most likely not true

What do our verdicts mean?

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