In July 2024, a video went viral on the Internet, where, allegedly, a resident of Ukraine complains about a kindergarten employee who punished the child for speaking Russian. We have verified the accuracy of this story.
Similar messages went viral on RuNet on July 18. For example, this is how the Telegram channel “Ukraina.ru” reported the news (twice: 123,000 And 116,000 views at the time of writing this analysis): “In Vinnitsa, in a kindergarten, a teacher washed the child’s mouth with soap for speaking Russian, after which he developed allergies and stomatitis. Parents write complaints to a bunch of authorities and ask for help, they report [on the Telegram channel]"Polite and caring"We are not sure that it will help, most likely the local authorities will also reward the “patriotic” teacher.” One of the publications was accompanied by a video allegedly filmed by the mentioned mother. The newspaper “Arguments and facts“reported that this video was posted on social networks by the victim’s mother, and then the recording spread across Ukrainian public pages and Telegram channels. However, the Russian publication did not provide any links.
According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, about 240 similar posts about this news appeared on Telegram, with a total of about 1.5 million views. Channels wrote about the alleged incident in a Vinnitsa kindergarten “Ne.Sugar"(213,000 views), "Sheikh Tamir"(134,000), "Kot Kostyan - official channel"(83,000), "Special Operation Z"(56,000), etc. Authors of the channel "Russia 2.0”(40,000 views) commented on the news like this: “Ukraine is no longer a country, but a real sect! Do you agree? In the channel "Mriya“(48,000 views) the described case was called “ethnocide as it is.” Similar posts are also widespread on VKontakte (examples here, here, here, here And here).
Two versions of the recording are distributed on the RuNet: the most popular is the one that lasts 36 seconds, but there is a version for 5 seconds. longer. Both videos show three documents: an application addressed to the director of the kindergarten, an application to the Vinnytsia Regional Prosecutor's Office and a certificate from a doctor. From these papers it follows that the woman who allegedly filmed the video is named Olesya Kovalchuk, and her five-year-old son Alexey was injured on July 13, 2024. Now the mother demands that teacher Elena Panasyuk be held accountable. The video does not show the face of the woman who says off-screen in Ukrainian:
“I just don’t understand where to turn anymore. I’m telling you: my child’s mouth was washed out with soap in kindergarten because he spoke Russian. For some reason, the teacher decided that she had the right to do this. Of course, I already wrote a complaint against her. The committees were also contacted. But the worst thing is that after this my child developed allergic stomatitis. Here, please, is a doctor's certificate. And it's just some kind of f***ing. I don’t understand how this is possible. It's a child! Child!"
To begin with, “Verified” tried to find the original source of the viral recording. Although the newspaper “Arguments and Facts” claimed that the mother herself posted the video on the Internet, and then it went viral on Ukrainian social networks, “Verified” was unable to find similar publications in the Ukrainian language. At the same time, the earliest post with a video that we were able to track appeared on July 18 at 14:18 Moscow time in the Russian-language Telegram channel “Partisans of Ukraine"(13,000 views). According to the TGStat service, this is a Russian channel, which, according to description, stands “against the regime of Vladimir Zelensky.” Just a minute later, the same post was published in the channel “Shaman Rahu"(3800 views), which mentioned in more than 30 of our analyzes of misinformation, mainly related to fake photos and videos.
“Verified” also studied the statements shown in the video and found some errors in the documents. Thus, one of the complaints was filed in the name of Natalya Vyacheslavovna Datsyuk, allegedly the director of kindergarten No. 67 “Solnyshko”, located in Vinnitsa at the address: st. Vasily Porika, 17. A kindergarten with this number and name actually exists - according to website, it is open as a sanatorium-type institution for tubi-infected, weakened and frequently ill children. However, "Sunny" located in Vinnitsa it’s different address: st. Stelmakha, 45. Moreover, on the garden website indicatedthat his manager's name is Irina Stanislavchuk. But at the address indicated in the application located kindergarten No. 52 "Rainbow". According to website institution is a general development nursery with compensatory groups for children with musculoskeletal disorders. Manager “Rainbows” - Ekaterina Shundrovskaya. In turn, Natalya Datsyuk mentioned in the statement on some Ukrainian websites indicated as the head of Vinnitsa kindergarten No. 31, which also called "Sun".
The application to the prosecutor's office also contains an error. In the complaint, the woman indicated the phone number +380 (66) 28-55-05, but it was recorded incorrectly. In Ukraine, numbers are used in 12-digit numbers format +380 yy xxx-xx-xx, where 380 - international telephone code of the country, yy - code of the region or mobile operator (in this case 66, usually the Vodafone operator) and xxx-xx-xx - a seven-digit subscriber number. That is, the child’s mother allegedly forgot one digit of her number.
As for the medical certificate shown in the video, there are three stamps on it: two of them indicate that the document was issued at the Vinnitsa public children's dental clinic, and the third is the personal stamp of the doctor Yana Olegovna Gavrilyuk. Our colleagues from the Ukrinform agency checked the authenticity of this paper and came to the conclusion that it was forged. Although Gavrilyuk actually works in dentistry, in a comment to reporters, the girl stated that she was an employee of the private Vinnitsa clinic Dent House, and not a city institution. This also confirms fast on the Dent House Instagram* account. “The certificate shown in the video is not mine. In addition, I did not have a patient with the last name Kovalchuk, which is indicated in it,” Gavrilyuk added.
Fact checkers from the StopFake project contacted for a comment to the Director of the Education Department of the Vinnytsia City Council Oksana Yatsenko, who also denied the authenticity of the viral story. She stated that neither in kindergarten No. 67 nor in any other preschool institution in Vinnitsa such incidents involving washing the mouth with soap occurred. The department added that a teacher named Elena Panasyuk does not work in kindergarten No. 67, and the boy mentioned in the complaints did not attend this institution. And the health department of the Vinnytsia City Council noticed that the Vinnytsia Children's Dental Clinic, mentioned in the medical certificate, was liquidated eight years ago.
Thus, there is no evidence that in a Vinnitsa kindergarten, a child’s mouth was washed out with soap for using the Russian language. A video about this first appeared on pro-Kremlin Telegram channels, and the submitted statements and certificate contain a number of errors and inaccuracies. City authorities also denied that such an incident took place.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: Still from the movie A Christmas Story (1983)
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