In early May 2024, photographs circulated on Telegram showing drawings allegedly prepared by children from an unnamed Russian city. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.

May 1, 2024 three photos published in his Telegram channel, publicist Alexander Nevzorov (502,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). In one of them, a boy looks at a drawing that depicts a tank with the Russian tricolor, bodies in clothes in the colors of the Ukrainian flag and the inscription “There is such a profession - to defend the Motherland.” In another photo, two girls stand next to a drawing in which fire is fired from a tank, and a soldier shoots at a man without a military uniform. “For our soldiers,” the caption reads. Finally, the heroine of the third photo holds a drawing in her hands, on it there is a military man with a severed leg, a tank and a Russian flag.

“In the first years of the invasion, while “drawing the war,” the children of the Russian Federation were still huddled and modest. They did not go as far as outright cannibalism. But now everything has changed. <…> Now Russian children are also outraged that Ukraine does not allow itself to be destroyed and robbed, and even resists mass murder and genocide. The departure of children's roofs has been recorded and confirmed in many regions. <…> Most likely, what happened is irreversible. The victims of teachers will “follow in the indicated direction,” increasing aggression and hatred towards “non-Russians.” It’s too late to feel sorry for them: almost all children in Russia are doomed to be expendable. The girls will soon become sows, and the boys will become food for trench maggots,” Nevzorov commented on the pictures.

Smaller Telegram channels also distributed these photos, and in channels GULAG (52,000 views) And "Anton ❌ Hardin"(36,000), published after Nevzorov’s post, the selection doubled, to six pictures. In various combinations, these images also appeared in Facebook, X And Instagram.

Posts with viral drawings began to spread, including against the backdrop of reports of patriotic events, which in the run-up to May 9 began to be increasingly held in Russian educational institutions. So, in mid-April, the Agency publication discovered on the social network VKontakte there are more than 2,000 photo reports from classes dedicated to the Day of United Action in memory of the “genocide of the Soviet people” during the Second World War. During these lessons, children were lined up in the shape of a five-pointed star or forced to kneel. After the publication of viral images, their own “Victory parades” were held in kindergartens and schools in Tambov, Saransk, Barnaul, Omsk, Yeisk, Bratsk and other cities of the Russian Federation. Similar events showcasing militarization Russian education system, are carried out for several years now.

Despite the abundance of publications about actions dedicated to Victory Day or dedicated to a special military operation (as the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is officially called in Russia), neither Nevzorov nor other bloggers indicate where exactly the children’s drawing competition took place, during which viral photographs were allegedly taken. Only two works from the photographs are signed, but these signatures indicate only the names of the authors, but not the numbers of the schools or the names of the cities where they are located. It is impossible to determine the location (or locations) of filming based on indirect evidence.

Verified examined the images using Google's reverse search tool. For the first time, a selection of nine photographs, including viral ones, on April 30 published Instagram user with username @hogfaces. “A competition of children's patriotic drawings was held in one of the Russian schools. Help me choose the winner,” the caption to the post says.

@hogfaces describes himself as an artist in his profile description, and the vast majority of the pictures he posts were apparently created using photo editing software. So, on the morning of May 8 he posted a photograph from the inauguration of Vladimir Putin that took place on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration, where the Russian President was depicted naked. In March, the blogger published a photo in which Putin buried in an open coffin in a landfill, in February - a photo of a politician on his knees sitting American publicist Tucker Carlson.

Although the caption to the selection of photographs from the children's drawing competition does not formally confirm that the images were generated using a neural network, @hogfaces has previously admitted to using it when creating his publications. In response to the comment “Which neuron was this done with?” under fasting dated April 25, the blogger named Midjourney, as well as the Photoshop program. He accompanies his other works with telling hashtags like #caricature And #putinmemes.

Thus, viral photos first appeared on an account that specializes in publishing images generated by a neural network and/or processed using a photo editor. The author does not directly indicate that he creates satirical content, but the reliability of the works he posts is easy to understand by briefly studying his profile. Informational publications in which photographs are presented as real are unfounded.

Cover photo: Telegram screenshot