In October 2024, Russian media and Telegram channels distributed several videos from a disco that allegedly took place in a temple taken from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). We have checked the correctness of this description of these videos.

October 12 news anchor "Channel One", presenting the next story, said: "Well, here, apparently, is one of the few discos where the military commissars did not go. Images from Vinnitsa. There, a church building that was seized from the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church was turned into a nightclub. In the sacred place there is light music, dancing, fires are burning, but none of those present, obviously, is in the least embarrassed by this contradiction.” The speaker’s words were illustrated by footage of a dancing crowd under the arches of a certain building. The video also features a song in Ukrainian.

This news spread widely on Telegram thanks to channels such as “Ukraine.ru"(118,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Troika"(99,000), "Skabeeva"(78,000), "Alexander Semchenko" (75,000) and "Cat Kostyan"(71,000). Many posts on Telegram contain not just one video from the supposed church, but three, ranging from 5 to 13 seconds in length. Apparently, the Channel One video was compiled from them.

Subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church until 2019 was recognized by other local Orthodox churches as the only legitimate one in the country. The situation changed when the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which had previously been proclaimed at the Unification Council received from the Patriarchate of Constantinople autocephaly, that is, independence from other local churches. After this, the process of mass transfer of UOC communities to the jurisdiction of the OCU began, accelerated with the start of a full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. In August 2024, with the adoption law “On the protection of the constitutional order in the sphere of activities of religious organizations,” the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine were actually prohibited, and the UOC received nine months to completely sever ties with it.

“Verified” did not find any examples of dissemination of news about a disco in a Vinnytsia church in authoritative Ukrainian-language sources. The description of viral videos often indicates that they were filmed in the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God, control over which the UOC lost in February 2024. Apparently, we are talking about temple icon of the Mother of God “Quick to Hear”, the conflict around which discussed in the media at the specified time. However, this small church bears no resemblance to the inside of the building captured in viral videos.

On October 12, the day after the videos were distributed, the following appeared on the website of the Vinnitsa diocese of the UOC statement: “Recently, false information has been spreading on the Internet about the Vinnitsa Church of the Icon of the Mother of God of the UOC, which has allegedly been turned into a nightclub where parties with lights and music are held. We would like to officially declare that this information is completely fictitious and does not correspond to reality, since there are no churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with similar internal architecture in Vinnitsa. The object that we see in the video looks more like some kind of community center or other premises where parties and similar events are currently being held. <…> All churches of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Vinnitsa continue to fulfill their mission as a place of prayer and spiritual life for our believers. There are no measures of an entertainment nature carried out there.”

If you use Google's reverse image search service for one of the frames of a viral video, you can find many links to publications in Polish. Some of them mention the Room 13 club in Warsaw.

Characteristic features of the establishment's interior, imprinted Google users confirm that the viral videos show this very club, located on Mazowiecka Street in the Polish capital.

On the left is a frame from the Internet, on the right is from a viral video

Several user videos from the club are posted in the Google Maps service at the specified address. IN one from them you can recognize footage from the first viral video. The author is listed as Justyna Momot, and it was posted in June 2019. It’s not the composition playing in the hall “Additional help ZSU"by the group Chico & Qatoshi, as on the recording distributed in 2024, and other club music.

On the left is a frame from Google, on the right is from a viral video

It is also located there original the second video that recently went viral on Telegram channels. The author is listed as Ashok Kayitha and the publication date is March 2019. In the original, club visitors dance to the song Alors On Dance singer Stromae, and not to a remix of the Ukrainian song “Chervona viburnum"

Finally, it is on Google Maps and video clip, which includes footage from the third viral video. It was uploaded by Sebastien Michelis in September 2019, and the song in the background is not at all Stefania, which brought the Ukrainian group Kalush Orchestra victory at Eurovision 2022.

The first three videos with an edited audio track and incorrect description were posted on October 11 at 12:22 Moscow time by the Telegram channel “Shaman Rahu"(9300 views). He repeatedly featured in “Checked” analyzes as original source disinformation about Ukraine.

Thus, these videos, shown on Russian federal television and making the rounds on the Internet under the guise of recording a disco in a Vinnitsa church, were made in 2019 in one of the nightclubs in Warsaw, and the sound in the videos was changed.

Cover photo: social networks