In mid-December 2023, news spread on the Internet that Ukrainian animators were threatened with a fine for wearing a Santa Claus costume - they should supposedly dress up as St. Nicholas instead. We decided to check if this is true.

Many Russian media outlets wrote that from now on the Santa Claus costume is banned in Ukraine (“Moskovsky Komsomolets", "Pravda.ru", "DonPress", etc.). Instead of a fur coat, a hat and a long beard, as follows from these publications, animators should wear the attributes of St. Nicholas - a chasuble and a miter, and he should be accompanied not by the Snow Maiden, but by an angel. The basis for the proposed ban was that Father Frost was a character imposed by Soviet anti-religious campaigns, and Saint Nicholas was a real person. In addition to various publications, social network users also wrote about the innovation (“VKontakte", "Classmates" And Facebook). Telegram channels did not stand aside either: the ban was reported “Ax 18+"(1.7 million views at the time of writing this analysis), "Live broadcast" (626,000), "KB 18+"(325,000), "Horn"(217,000), "Observer"(184,000), "Uncle Slava» (173,000), etc. To many posts Attached is a photo of a notice board where there is a notice with instructions on what Saint Nicholas should look like, and a reminder of the fine of 20,000 UAH (about 48,000 rubles at the exchange rate on the day the analysis was written) for using the image of Santa Claus. In some messages TBCthat such leaflets appeared in animation agencies in Kyiv and Lvov.

The reminder from the viral photo is placed on a cork board, the location of which is impossible to determine - only the poster itself, the cork background and the adjacent leaflet, also dedicated to St. Nicholas as a symbol of the New Year, are visible on it. The announcement does not indicate the institution that issued it, and there is no imprint. The surroundings of the board are also not visible in the photo, so it is impossible to determine whether it was really made in Ukraine. The leaflet itself is a sheet of A4 paper with printed text and pictures. Anyone could make it, place it on the board and photograph it.

“Verified” was unable to find any news in the Ukrainian media about the ban on the use of the image of Father Frost. There are no similar orders on the website Ministry of Culture countries. One might assume that the ban on such costumes and fines for employees for violating it is a private initiative of one of the Ukrainian agencies for organizing holidays, but the poster stipulates that the administration will “transmit a signal to the authorities from which you cannot escape.” At the same time, “Verified” was unable to find a single Ukrainian law that would regulate the wearing of a Santa Claus costume or introduce a ban on it. Therefore, it is not entirely clear to which authorities in this case the signal should be transmitted and what measures can be taken against violators.

If you look at the posters for upcoming New Year and Christmas events for children in different cities of Ukraine, you can see that the classic image of Father Frost, including a fur coat, hat and long beard, is actively used. Therefore, there is no need to talk about any widespread ban on these attributes and their replacement with the chasuble and miter inherent in the image of St. Nicholas. However, judging by the posters, the name of Father Frost does not appear in the names of Christmas trees, matinees and other holidays - Santa Claus or St. Nicholas are mentioned instead.

The earliest “Verified” publication found about the ban on Santa Claus costumes in Ukrainian cities appeared on December 15 at 16:34 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Freshness"(35,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). The post, citing unnamed subscribers, states that “in Kyiv and Lvov, agencies are distributing memos that our Father Frost is a pedophile and Snegurochka is a prostitute. But Saint Nicholas is a different matter.” Previously, this Telegram channel had already become the primary source of fake news. Thus, “Verified” denied the messages that appeared there that Hamas thanked Ukraine for the supply of weapons or that the US President Joe Biden abruptly left the veterans' awards ceremony without rewarding all participants.

This is not the first time that leaflets with high-profile advertisements, whose photos make it impossible to determine exactly where they are located, have been used to spread false information. Thus, earlier, photos of posters about the recruitment of American student debtors to the Armed Forces of Ukraine or about the collection donated blood in Ukraine only among purebred Ukrainians. Based on the results of verification, all of them turned out to be fakes.

This is not the first time that rumors that the Ukrainian authorities are banning Santa Claus have appeared before the New Year. Thus, in 2014, a fact-checking project StopFake denied the news that Santa Claus was banned in Ukraine because he is Russian, and they are almost going to cancel the New Year celebration as a whole. In 2016, Russian media toldthat the images of Father Frost and the Snow Maiden fell under decommunization (although in the corresponding law they are not mentioned). The proposed ban was also reported in 2022 year. However, neither then nor at the time of writing this analysis were any official prohibitions introduced, and the use of the image of Santa Claus remains completely legal.

Thus, as of December 2023, there is no official ban on wearing a Santa Claus costume and using this image at New Year’s events in Ukraine - at least, information about it could not be found either on government resources or in the Ukrainian media. It cannot be ruled out that one or even several event agencies could, on their own initiative, introduce restrictions for their employees. However, in this case, the threat to transmit information about the violator to the “authorities” mentioned on the leaflets looks at least strange. The Telegram channel, which was the first to publish a photo of a leaflet with information about the ban, had previously been noticed in distributing fakes. The poster itself could have been made by anyone, but from its photograph it is completely unclear where exactly this advertisement was placed. All these factors allow us to conclude that the news about the ban on the Santa Claus costume in Ukraine is not true.

Cover photo: Telegram channel "Freshness»