In mid-May 2024, three videos allegedly recently filmed in Ukraine spread across Russian-language Telegram channels. We checked whether this description of the video recordings is reliable.
In one of the viral videos, teenagers are lifting certain objects from graves; in the other two, behind-the-scenes authors boast about their “catch” in Ukrainian. The captions to the video indicate that the collection of sweets left at tombstones on Radonitsa (in 2024 fell on May 14) in Ukraine is widespread. This collection with the same type of comments received the greatest distribution on Telegram - in particular, thanks to the channels “Pozdnyakov 3.0"(403,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Uncle Slava"(217,000), "Observer"(198,000), Voblya (142,000) and "Army / News"(104,000).
Among the Eastern Slavs Radonitsa (Radovantsi, Radunitsa, Farewell) is a holiday of remembrance of the dead, celebrated on the ninth day after Easter. In Radonitsa, it is customary to visit the graves of loved ones and bring treats with you. Traditionally these were colored eggs and other home-cooked foods, but in recent decades these have been partially replaced by candies and cookies, which can be bought in stores and easily taken to the cemetery. Not all Orthodox priests approve of such a deviation from centuries-old tradition. Opinions also differ regarding the widespread practice of taking sweets from graves - exists position that in this No nothing reprehensible, especially if a person is hungry; others directly welcome the appropriation of candy, seeing it as a kind of ritual christening. Nevertheless, Russian users of social networks regularly complain about compatriots who specially come to the Radonitsa cemetery, pick up whole bags of candy and take them home. For example, in 2024 they walked on the Internet photo And video, allegedly made in Rostov-on-Don and Kansk. In these, as in other similar cases, the collection of candy from cemeteries was attributed to representatives of the Roma people.
Similar cases are not uncommon in Ukraine. In May 2024, Russian-language Telegram channels are actively distributed video Alina Khomenkova from Dnieper, the widow of the Ukrainian soldier Ilya Khomenkov, who died at the front. In the video, the girl complained about the unceremoniousness of people in the cemetery, who snatched the objects she brought to the grave almost out of her hands. Internet users outraged called and residents of Krivoy Rog who collected candy from the burial sites on Radonitsa.
Another video (the same one from the viral compilation, in which a man boasts of a 12-kilogram bag of candy) began to circulate in major Odessa news resources - “Trash Odessa" in Telegram and "Main news. Odessa» on Instagram - May 14. Large pro-Russian channels began distributing this video only a day later. This circumstance, as well as some other details (for example, Roshen candies, popular in Ukraine, are clearly visible in the video, and in Russia or Belarus they are now difficult to obtain) they say that the recording was most likely made in Ukraine.
Another video is similar in plot to the one discussed above - the person who filmed it shows his “prey.” However, not a single brand of candy can be seen in this recording - it’s as if they were specially laid out so that the labels were impossible to identify. The author of the video, who is behind the scenes, speaks Ukrainian with a pronounced accent and makes numerous mistakes: “Wires” instead of “See me off", "candy" instead of "tsukerki", "generally odial" instead of "fired perfectly." “Checked” was unable to detect the video in the Ukrainian-language segment of the Internet.
The third video, from the cemetery, is equipped with the Ukrainian-language caption “Khto zhe nazbirav” (“Who has already collected”). On May 14, a fragment of this video without a caption in Ukrainian actively spread V Belarus, and, accordingly, the people on the recording were presented like Belarusian ones. Only the next day, Russian Telegram channels began sharing videos with superimposed captions, and the first, according to the TGStat service, to post both dubious videos (along with the one filmed in Odessa) was the channel “Pozdnyakov 3.0" He repeatedly was noticed in the dissemination of false information related to Ukraine, and it is led by Vladislav Pozdnyakov, the creator of the “Male State” movement, which promotes gender discrimination, organizes persecution of people and organizations and has been declared extremist in Russia.
On the other hand, the surnames recognizable on the tombstones in the video (Bober, Dmitruk, Balanchuk and another ending in -ska), the abundance of Catholic crosses, as well as the fact that the authors of the Telegram channel somehow got hold of an uncropped video that was not found in any major Belarusian channels and public pages, does not allow us to make a clear choice in favor of the Belarusian version of the origin of the video.
Cover photo: social networks
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