In July 2024, an advertising video circulated on social networks, the authors of which offered an unusual means for evading service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We have verified the authenticity of this video.
The video is designed as an Instagram story and is accompanied by a geotag of Odessa, while the user’s username is blurred out. According to an advertisement in Ukrainian, false breasts costing 4,800 UAH (about $116) “will help avoid mobilization.” The video was published by such Telegram channels as “Putin on Telegram"(189,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Uncle Slava"(175,000), Voblya (134,000), Ukraine.ru (117,000) and "Sokolov"(47,000).
May 18 in Ukraine entered a new law on mobilization comes into force. According to this document, all persons liable for military service between the ages of 18 and 60 were required to update their personal data within two months at territorial recruitment centers (TCCs, local analogues of military registration and enlistment offices), at administrative service centers or through a special application. By condition as of July 14, about 4 million Ukrainians did this. At the same time, it spreads across the Internet big quantity video, in which TCC employees in different cities of the country forcibly detain potential conscripts.
“Verified” did not find any evidence of distribution of this video on Ukrainian-language resources or at least on Russian-language pages of Ukrainian sites. Neither local media nor Ukrainian social media users wrote about the unusual action of the supposedly Odessa store. It was also not possible to find a similar advertisement on Instagram.
The advertisement contains the telephone number 0736477889. Code 073 corresponds Ukrainian operator Life:). “Verified” did not find this number in open sources, although a truly existing store would be interested in distributing its contact information when promoting goods. Top up the account linked to this number through some specialized services doesn't work: comes answer, that the client was not found or the number does not exist. Moreover, it is not tied to accounts in popular messengers in Ukraine: WhatsApp, Viber and Telegram. Blurring the username while saving the number also looks strange.
“T-shirt” type false breasts, similar presented in the video, you can purchasesti in many online stores. Most likely, the basis of the viral video was an advertisement for such a product on one of the marketplaces.
According to the TGStat service, the first video with the corresponding description was posted by the Telegram channel “Freshness» July 16 at 17:43 Moscow time (362 reposts). Previously he repeatedly mentioned in debriefings "Checked" as original source disinformation related to Ukraine.
Thus, there is not a single piece of evidence confirming the authenticity of the Ukrainian advertisement for false breasts “for draft dodgers.” At the same time, several elements of the viral video, as well as the history of its distribution, indicate that it was falsified.
However, the authors of the likely fake could have spent a little more time and discovered that in the Ukrainian online store Shafa.ua for sale silicone breasts, in the description of which “masking from TCC” is actually named among the possible methods of use. This overlay costs a quarter less than the analogue from the viral video.
Cover photo: social networks
Read on topic:
- Is it true that the Vinnytsia region has banned the sale of wigs to men?
- Is it true that in the Kharkov region they awarded wives who “surrendered” their husbands to the military registration and enlistment office?
- Is it true that in Kyiv two conscripts beat and robbed a military commissar, hitting him on the head with a brick?
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