At the end of February 2024, news spread on social networks that two residents of the capital of Ukraine allegedly took revenge on a military registration and enlistment office employee for the summonses handed to them. It is reported that the man was tracked down in the evening, attacked and robbed of valuables. We have verified the accuracy of this story.
Publications about an attack by two men on an employee of a territorial acquisition center (TCC) appeared on the RuNet on February 24, 2024. In the Telegram channel "Sheikh Tamir“(143,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) the incident was described as follows: “Having received the summons, two residents of Kyiv did not get upset and in the evening they tracked down a TCC employee, hit him on the head with a brick and took away his “work notebook”, as well as some valuable things (officially a telephone and a gold ring). As the head of the Shevchenkovsky City Internal Affairs Directorate, Igor Padyuk, said, as a result of processing the evidence collected at the scene of the incident, criminal investigation operatives, together with criminal analysis analysts, recreated the circumstances of the event and identified those involved in the attack on the victim: “The attackers turned out to be two men - a 44-year-old Kharkov resident and his 39-year-old friend, a resident of the capital. One of the defendants was detained near the scene of the incident, and his accomplice is on the left side of Kyiv.” The detainees face a real prison term, which for them is preferable to service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” The post is accompanied by a 22-second video, as well as two photos of the detained suspects.
Publications similar in content appeared in Telegram channels “Sanya in Florida"(462,000 views), "Operational reports"(207,000), "Ukraine.ru" (142,000), "Ostashko! Important"(116,000), "Release the Kraken!"(73,000), "Club service" (72,000), "Prigozhin 2023"(63,000), "Officer" (52,000) and "Yuri Podolyaka"(43,000). There are similar entries in public pages in “VKontakte"and on some news websites.
The video being distributed shows how two unknown men approach a man sitting on the hood of a car from behind and then attack him, hitting him several times in the head with a brick. After some time, the attackers flee the crime scene. At the same time, in the lower right corner of the video there is the logo of the press service of the National Police of Ukraine (NPU), and in the center the emblem of the Ukrainian Telegram channel “All-Seeing Eye” appears several times.
February 24 at 01:46 Moscow time at "All-seeing eye"(293,000 views) there was actually a post with the same video, but it said that the attack was carried out on a serviceman. There was no mention that the victim worked at the TCC. The details of what happened are listed almost the same as in Russian channels: the crime occurred in the capital, unknown persons - residents of Kharkov and Kyiv - stole the victim’s phone, wallet and gold ring, and were soon detained. Unlike Russian resources, the Ukrainian Telegram channel provided a link to the official Facebook* account of the Kyiv police, where there is a post about a robbery published February 23 at 19:32. There was the same video recording of the incident and the same photographs of the detainees, which were distributed by the authors of Russian notes and publications.
According to the press release, a serviceman contacted the Shevchenko police department and reported a robbery. The attackers ran up to him from behind and hit him hard on the head with a brick, and then continued beating him, as a result of which the man lost consciousness. When the victim came to, he discovered that his mobile phone, wallet and gold ring were missing. Operatives located the attackers and detained them within several hours. According to the charges, the defendants face up to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property. “The attackers turned out to be two men - a 44-year-old Kharkov resident and his 39-year-old friend, a resident of the capital. We detained one of the defendants not far from the scene of the incident, and his accomplice on the left bank of the city of Kyiv,” said Igor Padyuk, head of the Shevchenko police department. Nothing was said about the victim’s place of work, his missing work notebook, or whether the detainees received summonses.
The same crime report published on the website of the National Police of Kyiv. Without mentioning the TCC and the motives of the detainees, this news was presented as famous Ukrainian Media, as well as some pro-government Russian publications. For example, in "Lente.ru" And "Public News Service“The victim of the attack was simply called a serviceman of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Based on the keywords, “Verified” determined that the earliest post with a 22-second viral video and a mention of an attack on a military commissar due to subpoenas appeared on February 24 at 12:29 in the Telegram channel “Dill fresh"(12,000 views). Previously this channel has repeatedly distributed anti-Ukrainian fakes, and at the beginning of 2024 there appeared a couple of similar false reports. Thus, on January 15, “Ukropsky Fresh” posted a staged video of the murder of an employee of the Ukrainian military registration and enlistment office, and on January 22, they also published a photo of another military commissar allegedly killed in Kharkov (then the channel’s authors distorted the police press release, adding references to the TsK and subpoenas). However, 12 hours earlier, on February 24 at 00:04, in the Telegram channel “Alexander Semchenko"(98,000 views) also talked about beating a military commissar with a brick. But that publication included an almost two-minute video with a commentary from a representative of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, who also did not talk about the summons or the victim’s place of work. This channel is also mentioned in dozens of our analyzes and distributed the above-mentioned fakes about the murder of two TCC employees.
It is noteworthy that the day before, on February 23, in the channels “Dill fresh"(8000 views) and "Alexander Semchenko"(88,000) with a difference of several minutes they spoke about another attack on a military commissar in Kyiv - they allegedly wanted to kill him with a brick while he was riding on a tram. "At some point [from the station side] a brick flew at him, broke the window and hit him squarely in the head. As a result, the military commissar suffered a serious skull injury and was urgently hospitalized,” the posts say. Moreover, it is specified that “in Kyiv public pages people approve of this act.” Among other major channels, only the TV presenter’s resource wrote about the alleged incident with a TCC employee Ruslana Ostashko (117,000 views).
“Verified” found out: since February 22, in Kyiv communities, public pages and blogs, in fact wrote that unknown persons threw a brick at a moving tram. As a result, a man whose place of work was not indicated was injured. Moreover, the act of the hooligans itself was entirely condemned.
Thus, the Kyiv police did not report the arrest of the robbers with a brick who attacked the military commissar. Apparently, someone paraphrased the official press release, adding made-up details about the criminals' motive and the victim's place of work.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: Kiev Police
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