At the beginning of March 2025, several videos circulated on social networks, allegedly depicting the falsification of content about the exploits of the Ukrainian military at the front. We have checked the correctness of such publications.
The videos were distributed on March 2. One of the recordings shows several actors in uniforms with chevrons in the form of the Ukrainian flag, members of the film crew who are applying their makeup, and a tent in the background. In another video, one of the actors allegedly pumps another on the battlefield. Users who published the videos indicate that this is how staged videos about the war in Ukraine and the exploits of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers are shot.
Telegram channels shared videos with similar captions “Sanya in Florida"(490,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Sheikh Tamir"(121,000), "Alexander Semchenko"(85,000), "Cat Kostyan"(76,000), etc.
The videos began to spread against the backdrop of deteriorating relations between Kyiv and Washington. February 28, right in front of reporters in the Oval Office happened skirmish between US President Donald Trump, US Vice President J.D. Vance and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Further negotiations, at which it was planned to sign an agreement on the joint development of Ukrainian mineral resources, were disrupted, and Zelensky ahead of schedule left White House.
Several versions of these videos are available on social networks. In the most complete version of the first of them, the TikTok logo and the username of the profile that posted it are visible - @vitsikkkk2. The username there says “Vitsik - fighter for life”, there is also YouTube channel with that name. “The author’s military channel, where you can find out the truth about life on the front line, the realities of war and personal stories from the life of a medic,” says the profile description in Ukrainian. Although the blogger publishes content on various platforms, his main focus appears to be TikTok, where 270,000 users follow the military man.
Two versions video, in which a man runs up to a lying girl, were published on this blog on February 28. In both cases, the caption indicates that these are stills from the video. The video of the film crew applying makeup to the girl is currently unavailable, but there is a similar video, filmed from a different angle.
Apparently, we are talking about a music video for the song “Brothers,” which the blogger recorded together with performer Misha Scorpio. Clip came out February 24, 2025, the anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion. At the mark 01:35 a frame appears with a girl from viral videos.
The description of the video on YouTube says that the clip featured Ukrainian soldiers and defenders of Azovstal who were captured by Russia: Maryana Chechelyuk, Asan Isenadzhiev, Nikita Shastun and Alexander Bevz. It was Chechelyuk who became the heroine of viral videos that spread on social networks with accusations of falsification. Before the full-scale war, the girl worked investigator in Mariupol, took refuge from bombing at the Azovstal plant, subsequently did not pass the filtration organized by the Russian side and was captured for two years. At the end of May 2024 Chechelyuk came back to Ukraine as part of an exchange. Shastun - Azov fighter, and Isenadzhiev - team medic. Consequently, the participants in the video are not professional actors, and many of them are former or current military personnel.
March 2 in the profile of @vitsikkkk2 on TikTok appeared a video message from a blogger to those who distribute his content with misleading captions. “We are here, we are fighting, we are evacuating, we are winning,” the young man noted, clarifying that he himself serves as a medic for the evacuation crew in the Kurakhovsky direction. The next day it was published Another video with a refutation. Chechelyuk too called viral publications are fake.
Pro-Russian Telegram channels are mainly distributed videos with the watermark of the channel “Alexander Semchenko”. Due to the variety of captions for the videos, it is difficult to establish the original source in Russian, however, the earliest post with false comments on the videos that “Verified” was able to find was indeed posted on the channel “Alexander Semchenko” on March 2 at 10:32 Moscow time. Moreover, at least six hours earlier, one of the videos began to spread in the English-language segment of the social network X. In particular, his published user @LibTearCreator1. According to him, the video shows how Ukrainians imitate military operations so that the United States continues to transfer money to them. This post has received more than 8 million views.
The profile description for @LibTearCreator1 states: “Creator of liberal tears. Political satirist. Follow me and join the club." The user publishes posts in support Trump, fake videos with the Ukrainian president and AI-generated voiceover, and also writes that the American people hates Zelensky. Subsequently, the video with the incorrect caption was shared by other popular accounts on X, some publications dialed tens thousand views.
For three years, pro-Kremlin bloggers, propagandists and Russian officials have regularly accused Ukraine of falsifying photo and video content demonstrating the consequences of the Russian invasion. From April 2022 they distribute similar statements about the massacre of civilians during the occupation of Bucha. In the summer of 2024, a video went viral, supposedly proving the staged nature of some of the footage that was filmed by journalists at the site of the Russian attack on the Kyiv Okhmatdyt hospital. Often the basis for such false statements were videos in which captured filming feature films.
Thus, the viral videos show the filming of the video and a fragment from this music video. Ukrainian soldiers actually took part in the filming, but the resulting video was never presented as a chronicle of military operations.
Cover photo: social networks
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- Is it true that the Ukrainians falsified a report about the shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol?
- Is it true that in Gostomel the Ukrainians filmed a staged video about the “atrocities of Russian troops”?
- Is it true that the Ukrainian Armed Forces made a staged video about the heroic storming of the building by Ukrainian soldiers?
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