In May 2024, reports appeared on social networks that due to a shortage of medical staff, a veterinarian was hired at one of the shopping centers in the Ukrainian capital. We checked whether such publications are true.
In a post published on May 11 in the Telegram channel of a Russian TV presenter Olesya Loseva (17,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), the news is presented as follows: “In the Kiev TCC (territorial recruitment center, analogous to the military registration and enlistment office in Ukraine. - Ed.), a conclusion on fitness for service is issued by a veterinarian. Due to the lack of qualified personnel, TCCs are forced to invite workers with at least some medical education. However, no one hid the fact that in Ukraine ordinary conscripts are treated like animals.” Author of the Telegram channel "Kovpak's detachment”(26,000 views) asks the question: “Forced circumstances or is it a hint from the Kyiv organized crime group to the local population that the Ukrainian people for the Zelensky junta are akin to cattle in a slaughterhouse?” Such publications are accompanied by two images: the first is a photo of the office door with the name of the receiving physician, the second is a screenshot of a website page supposedly with a photo of this doctor.
According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, about 100 channels on Telegram wrote about a veterinarian working with Kyiv conscripts, whose posts received a total of almost 700,000 views. Among them "Three heroes and Zelensky drug addict"(160,000 views), "Sheikh Tamir" (153,000), ""Special Operation Z" | Yuri Podolyaka+" (34,000), "The Countess runs across the pond with a changed face"(33,000), "Political navigator"(20,000), "What's going on?"(20,000), etc. Similar publications can be found on VKontakte (examples here, here, here And here) and social networks X (here, here And here), as well as on some news websites.
One of the distributed photographs shows the door of the medical office, where, judging by two signs, surgeon Oksana Vladimirovna Politienko allegedly works. The second image allegedly shows the same woman wearing a medical uniform and holding a dog, hinting at her work with animals.
Fact checkers from the StopFake project found outthat such a doctor exists. Oksana Politienko works at Kyiv veterinary clinic "Lessie", on whose website it is actually indicated as a physician and surgeon. The viral screenshot with her photo, judging by the design of the page, was taken on the same website in the “Our doctors" StopFake journalists contacted the veterinary clinic to clarify whether their employee works at the TCC. The administration responded that this information was “absurd” and untrue. “This is even theoretically impossible. We do not belong to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. Veterinarians belong to a completely different structure,” said representatives of Lassie.
As for the viral photo of the office door, “Verified” discovered an identical photo, in which, however, there is only one sign, and the inscription on it is different. The photograph we found was taken no later than April 2016 and published on the official website of the children's hospital in the Russian city of Volzhsky. The original does not indicate the name of the doctor working in this room, and on the blue sign there is no Ukrainian-language inscription “surgeon” - it says in Russian that this is an “esophagogastroduodenoscopy room.” Photo on the institution's website posted in the section “Hospital on Lenin Avenue”, there you can find other photos with similar doors and signs with the same design.
The earliest publication with a fake photo that “Verified” was able to track appeared on May 11, 2024 at 12:39 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Sheikh Tamir" Five minutes later, a similar post was released by the channel “Shaman Rahu"(4100 views). Both of these resources tens once posted fake photos and videos or became the primary sources of dissemination of such fakes, which were sorted out by “Verified” and other fact checkers.
Thus, the evidence that in the Kiev TCC conscripts and mobilized are examined by a veterinarian turned out to be fake. Unknown people edited a photo taken in a Russian children's hospital, changing the inscription on the sign and adding the name of a real employee of the Kyiv veterinary clinic.
Cover photo: collage “Verified” / social networks / essy.kiev.ua
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