In early June 2024, a photo allegedly taken at a recent “Last Call” in the largest city in Western Ukraine spread across social networks. We have verified the authenticity of this photo.
According to publications in the media and Telegram channels, in one of the Lviv schools, eleventh-graders were given traditional ribbons on which the map of Ukraine was depicted without the Crimean Peninsula. As proof, a photograph was cited, allegedly taken on a line in front of the educational institution. Pro-Russian bloggers accompanied this photo with comments like “Stage of acceptance” and “Finally, the awareness of the new reality has come.”
The news was spread by Russian media (“Arguments and facts", "Crimea news feed", "Podolyak") and numerous Russian-language Telegram channels, including "Operation Z: Military Correspondents of the Russian Spring"(478,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Ne.Sugar"(221,000), "Truthfulness"(186,000), "Uncle Slava" (170,000) and "Ukraine.ru"(136,000).
Despite the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Ukrainian authorities consistently consider the peninsula to be part of their sovereign territory (in this case with them jointly the vast majority of countries in the world). Both officials and many Ukrainian residents react strongly to statements supporting the opposing point of view. For example, in 2017 the authorities banned broadcasting on the territory of the country of the Russian independent TV channel “Dozhd”, on air of which they showed a map with Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. Arose such scandals and in the future, and in 2021, the Verkhovna Rada even discussed law on the introduction of fines for such images. “We cannot imagine Ukraine without Crimea. And while Crimea remains occupied by Russia, this means one thing: the war is not over yet,” stated President of the country Vladimir Zelensky in 2023.
Under these conditions, it is logical that the alleged embarrassment at the “Last Bell” in Lviv could not be ignored by the local media and the Ukrainian-language segment of social networks. However, “Verified” did not find any traces of any serious discussion of such an incident in the Ukrainian media field.
A search for feed templates similar to those depicted in the viral image led to the online store Festshop.com.ua. On his page in Instagram there are almost identical templates.
“Verified” contacted a representative of Festshop.com.ua, and he confirmed that the feeds from the viral photo are very similar to their own, but with a significant difference - all such images depict Ukraine within internationally recognized borders. He also said that the ribbons are ordered individually by students or their parents, so the statement that “the graduates were given ribbons” is in itself incorrect.
According to a store employee, you can try to determine the city whose residents ordered them such ribbons by the location of the heart on the map of Ukraine - often, at the request of parents or graduates, it is placed in the same place as the locality itself. From this we can conclude that we are not talking about Lviv, which is located almost at the western border of the country. Much more likely candidates are, for example, Ternopil or Khmelnitsky located to the east.
Having conducted an internal investigation at the request of “Verified”, a representative of Festshop.com.ua found out that the order for ribbons with exactly this arrangement of the heart and specifically for class 11 “A” came from Ternopil. And he even provided a template.
“Verified” studied publications about “Last Calls” in local media. Released May 31, 2024 report The publication “20 Khvilin” about festive assemblies in various educational institutions of the city presents the following photograph taken at a celebration in school No. 19.
These are the same graduates as in the viral photo, only taken in a slightly more general shot. On the ribbons worn by eleventh graders, a map of Ukraine corresponds to internationally recognized borders.
In the Telegram channel of the same publication “20 hvilin» other photographs taken that day at school No. 19 are also presented. One of them coincides with what pro-Kremlin resources distributed. The only difference is that in the original frame Crimea is depicted as part of Ukraine.
Thus, the viral photo is the result of processing in a graphic editor a frame published in the Telegram channel of the Ternopil media.
According to the TGStat service, the Telegram channel “Bear» June 1 at 11:25 Moscow time. This resource has been repeatedly mentioned V debriefings “Verified” as a distributor of disinformation about Ukraine.
Cover photo: social networks
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