At the end of March - beginning of April 2024, reports circulated that in the city of Lozovaya several women told the authorities about their spouses who were draft dodgers, so that they would be sent to the Ukrainian army. A few days later, one of these husbands allegedly died. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.
The newspaper “Arguments and Facts” was one of the first to tell about this story. website and in social networks. A note dated March 27, 2024 states that recently in the city of Lozovaya in the Kharkov region, the head of the local territorial recruitment center (TCC, an analogue of military registration and enlistment offices in Ukraine), Vitaly Chusenko, presented awards to women who “turned in” their draft dodger husbands. “It’s a rather funny situation; in fact, in rare situations, a wife will set up her husband in this way. <...> Maybe in this Lozovaya, the lazy men fed up their wives to such an extent that they took such a step as calling the military commissars in order to get rid of their weary existence,” told in a commentary to a Russian newspaper by Ekaterina Sazhneva (in the publication she is presented as a journalist and human rights activist).
However, on Telegram, such messages began to be widely distributed only on March 30. According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, about 300 posts about this news appeared on the platform, which in total received more than 3.5 million views. At the same time, Telegram, in contrast to “Arguments and Facts,” published a photograph of women with flowers and certificates that were allegedly awarded to them on March 26. Also the authors of the posts lead, as stated, the words of a representative of the TCC in Lozovaya: “The spouses could no longer continue to cover for draft dodgers and began to demand that they go defend their country.” Channels wrote about the surrender of their husbands by their wivesThe world today with "Yuri Podolyak""(1.1 million views; post deleted), "Sanya in Florida"(511,000), "For real"(253,000), "The world of Mikhail Onufrienko"(221,000; post deleted), "Ukraine.ru"(148,000; post deleted), "Sheikh Tamir"(147,000), "Special Operation Z" (77,000) and "Club service"(74,000). “Nothing human, a country of informers and traitors. <…> Let's remember these crocodiles. When we go to Kharkov, we’ll ask them to the fullest,” the author of the channel “commented on the news.”Angry journalist"(57,000 views). Publications about the surrender of spouses to the military registration and enlistment office are found in “VKontakte" And "Zene", as well as on the websites of the newspaper "Capital C" And "Politicus"
On March 30, a continuation of the story appeared: a Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier from Lozovaya, whom his wife had previously handed over to the military commissars, allegedly died near Kupyansk. “Naturally, she became hysterical, during which she accused Zelensky and the leadership of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense for the death of her husband. But for some reason I forgot about myself, because it was at her suggestion that my betrothed was taken to the front,” says the Telegram channel “Alexander Semchenko"(101,000 views), which also includes a photo of the couple. The channels also wrote about the man’s death “Russian TV"(36,000 views), "Actually in Kharkov"(28,000; post deleted) and "Denazification UA"(22,000), however, such posts did not receive much distribution (in total they received about 200,000 views).
On the wall behind the women captured in the first viral photo, “Lozovsk City Council” is written in Ukrainian, and also represents coat of arms city of Lozovaya. Using reverse image search, AFP journalists found outthat the original photo was published March 25, 2024 on the Lozova city territorial community Facebook page. As stated in the post, on that day participants in events to preserve the memory of the fallen defenders of Ukraine were awarded. “The working group to honor the soldiers who died for the independence of Ukraine and support their families was created in 2023 on the initiative of the head of the city of Lozovaya, Sergei Zelensky,” the publication said.
In total, more than 20 photos from the ceremony are attached to the post, including portrait photographs of the awarded women. In some images one can discern the inscriptions on the certificates.
Having studied photographs from the city council, as well as the list of awarded people on website Lozova, “Verified” was able to identify all the women (two men were also awarded) and find out why they received their certificates. Here are their names and positions (if listed on the site) from left to right:
- Irina Timoshenko;
- Marina Mikhailishina, head of the department for the provision of benefits of the Department of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of the Lozovsky City Council;
- Tatyana Savina, teacher of Ukrainian language and literature at Lyceum No. 1 in Lozovaya;
- Irina Patalakha;
- Svetlana Tumanova;
- Yulia Ustimenko;
- Elena Chizhkova-Poteychuk, teacher of Ukrainian language and literature at Lyceum No. 11 in Lozovaya.
It is specified that Mikhailishina received gratitude and a certificate “for significant personal contribution to the worthy veneration of the memory of the fallen defenders of Ukraine, the large-scale work carried out to create the Book of Memory, the Walk of Fame”, Savina and Chizhkova-Poteichuk - for preparing materials for the Book of Memory, Tymoshenko - for preparing photographic materials and working on banners for the Walk of Fame, and Patalakha, Tumanova and Ustimenko - for working as part of initiative group from the families of fallen Ukrainian military personnel.
The YouTube channel of the local television and radio company also published a video recording of the ceremony, which, judging by the interior, took place in hall meetings of the Lozova City Hall.
“Verified” found out that the earliest post about rewarding women for allegedly turning over their spouses to the military registration and enlistment office appeared several days before the mass dissemination of this news - back on March 26 at 11:04 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Dill fresh"(8400 views). Moreover, the channel did not name the date of the award, but limited itself to the wording “the other day.” That publication featured several photographs from the ceremony and clarified that the man in a black jacket presenting the certificates was a certain Vitaly Chusenko, the head of the local TCC, although in fact it was the mayor of Lozova, Sergei Zelensky.
Previously, “Ukropsky Fresh” has repeatedly mentioned in the “Verified” analysis in connection with the publication of misinformation in this channel, and more than once its authors used authentic photographs and videos with incorrect and even completely fictitious descriptions.
As for the reports about the husband of a woman from Lozovaya allegedly dying near Kupyansk, this is also the first time told in “Fresh Dill” (6800 views) - March 30 at 14:07. The viral photo that illustrates this news has nothing to do with the Kharkov region. Thus, the Kharkov Anti-Corruption Center for details interior found outthat the picture shows a wedding in a registry office in the Odessa region.
“Verified,” in turn, established that the man in the photo is a lieutenant colonel Anatoly Sergeevand the girl's name is Ekaterina Koshkina. According to her post on Instagram, the couple got married on October 5, 2023. Sergeev served in the ranks of the Ukrainian army even before the full-scale invasion of Russia, at the beginning of March 2022 he was spotted in the photo of the Izmail Territorial Defense Battalion (TrO; Izmail is a city in the Odessa region). At the end of March 2024, Ukrainian media reported about the death of Sergeev, which was confirmed on Facebook by a public figure Valery Peikov and the mayor of Izmail Andrey Abramchenko. “On March 27, the first commander of the Izmail battalion of the TrO, Lieutenant Colonel Anatoly Andreevich Sergeev, died on the battlefield. Under his leadership, in the first weeks of the war, a unit was formed and important defense tasks were carried out in the south of the Odessa region. For almost two years he served as part of the 126th TrO brigade, which held the front near Nikolaev and liberated the Kherson region,” Peikov wrote.
Thus, reports that in Lozovaya several wives handed over their husbands to the military commissar, one of whom subsequently died, are falsifications from the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel. It is based on authentic photographs, which, however, have nothing to do with the events described.
Cover photo: @lozovanews
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