In March 2025, news spread widely in the media and Telegram channels that on Ukrainian television children were being encouraged to inform on their relatives. We have verified the accuracy of this story.
On March 10, a 38-second video shot on a phone, which allegedly captured the broadcast of the Ukrainian children’s TV channel “PlusPlus”, either on a computer monitor or on a small TV, went viral on the RuNet. Judging by the video, they showed a short cartoon about a boy wearing a T-shirt in the colors of the Right Sector and with the Ukrainian coat of arms on his chest. He plays with the soldiers, but hears music and goes to look for the source of the sound. It turns out that it is his sister in the next room watching a video with US President Donald Trump dancing to the song “Sigma Fight”. A voice-over in Ukrainian says: “Remember: if your sister worships the Rashists, then she is not your sister.” Next, an announcement is displayed on the screen with the hotline number of the Security Service of Ukraine and a message about the need to report high treason to law enforcement agencies. Some resources that distributed the video indicated that it was sent by subscribers from Kharkov.
This video was shared EADaily, "Notebook", "Grozny inform" and other media, as well as Telegram channels "Actually in Dnieper"(2 million views at the time of writing this analysis), "Uncle Slava"(213,000), "Observer"(216,000), "Voblya • news" (166,000), "Ivan Utenkov | Kursk"(162,000), "First People's | News"(109,000), "Freshness"(104,000), "Emergency / Crimea» (100,000), etc.
Restrictions on the use of the Russian language in Ukraine have been one of the important topics for manipulation by pro-Kremlin media for many years. As for music, in Ukraine since the summer of 2022 there will indeed be forbidden public reproduction of songs created or performed by citizens of the aggressor state (Verkhovna Rada admitted Russia as such back in 2015). For violating this rule provided fine. In Kyiv, for example, the restrictions are even stricter - there in the summer of 2023 banned any public use of Russian-language songs (and other works), regardless of the citizenship of the performer.
However, listening to Russian music or songs in Russian privately, for example at home or through headphones in public places, is not regulated or prohibited by Ukrainian law. In addition, there is a so-called whitelist Russian performers who condemn military aggression and to whom the bans do not apply. However, in order to be included in the list, the artist must submit a special application to the SBU and sign a declaration in which he supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, undertakes not to take actions in support of the aggressor country and agrees to the publication of this document. “Verified” was unable to find a white list of Russian performers in the public domain.
The song “Sigma Fight,” featured in the cartoon, was released last fall and went viral. On YouTube she dialed more than 110 million views, and in January 2025 took seventh place on the Billboard World Chart. The composition, performed by Russian teenage girls Svetlana Betsy Chertishcheva and Maria Yankovskaya, drew the attention of a variety of officials and activists. On the one hand, the Russian conservative movement “Forty Forties” called for a ban video for the song, deeming it overly sexualized, while MEP Nela Riehl complainedthat Sigma Fight promotes patriarchal principles among European youth. Ukrainian authorities also spoke out against this song, calling part of the information war, but no sanctions were announced for private listening.
In the upper left corner of the TV screen, which appears in the viral video, the logo is visible TV channel "PlusPlus." This is one of the most popular children's TV channels in Ukraine, it is part of the holding "1+1 Media" "PlusPlus" is already attracted attention Russian pro-government media in 2022, when it appeared a series of cartoons about the Russian invasion.
The same video is used as evidence of the broadcast of a cartoon calling for the surrender of their relatives to the SBU. The author of the video films (presumably with a phone camera) the screen where the broadcast is supposedly taking place. At the very end they show the phone number and email address of the SBU.
The viral video raises several questions. Firstly, it is strange that only one version of the video is being circulated - given the resonance of the statements in the cartoon, it is unlikely that just one person was able to record its broadcast on a popular children's television channel. Moreover, it looks implausible when in their publications a variety of Telegram channels claim that the video was sent to them by a subscriber. Secondly, the design of the last frame is significantly different from those that the SBU press service usually uses in its videos. In the video, intelligence agencies usually depicted Ukrainian military, and in such information campaigns indicated hotline contacts and logo. In addition to the phone number, the address of the Telegram bot is also provided, where you can anonymously send information. In addition, the slogan “Your safety is our concern” from the viral cartoon was used by the SBU on an ongoing basis until 2018, now at the end of the videos demonstrated the phrase in Ukrainian is “Defending Ukraine together.” Note that the number and email from the screen are current - this is helpline and e-mail SBU.
The video being distributed also states that listening to Russian music falls under the article of treason. However, this is not the case: in Ukrainian law, listening to music in Russian - or, as the video says, “worshipping racists” - doesn't count grounds for initiating a criminal case under this article.
The Security Service of Ukraine indeed periodically conducts information campaigns calling on citizens to cooperate, and traces of them can easily be found on the Internet. For example, in January of this year, the SBU announced about the launch of a bot through which you can report cases when a person is offered money for setting fires or mining objects on the territory of Ukraine. At the same time, the department published a video explaining the illegality of such actions. However, this video, unlike the viral one, was posted on all verified SBU accounts on social networks (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Telegram, X) And on the website intelligence services. In addition, numerous Ukrainian media reported about the action (“Channel 24", New Voice, "RBC-Ukraine", "Ukrinform", etc.). The same applies to the above-mentioned 2022 cartoon about the Russian invasion: information about the broadcast of the film “Dobro zavzhdi peremagaє” (“Good always wins”) can also be found on official website "PlusPlus", and in abundance Ukrainian Media.
At the same time, the cartoon with a call to report “worship of racists” is not mentioned either on the SBU website or on the verified pages of the special service on social networks. On website "PlusPlus" and in program There are no transmissions of information about him either. It can be assumed that the SBU and representatives of the TV channel deleted the cartoon after wide publicity, but, unlike the 2022 film, the media did not write about it. March 13 in the verified account “PlusPlus” on Instagram appeared a post claiming that the video calling for denunciation of relatives listening to Russian music was never broadcast on the TV channel.
The video spread mainly through pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. The first post that contains a viral video and which was found “Verified” posted on the channel “Noema’s Ark” on March 12 at 07:24 Moscow time. After about an hour of video appeared on the channel “Actually in the Dnieper”. Although he only has 28,000 followers, the post has received over 2 million views thanks to repost to the channel “The World Today with Yuri Podolyak”, to which 3 million users are subscribed. These two channel are regularly mentioned in “Verified” analyzes as primary sources and distributors of fake news.
Subsequently, the video also became viral in the Russian-language segment of the social network. X and in TikTok. Several popular publications also appeared in English - for example, video posted cooperating with RT Irish publicist Chey Bowes. In a tweet, he addressed US Vice President J.D. Vance: "You have agreed to resume military and intelligence assistance to a dictatorship whose feared intelligence agency, the Gestapo, openly encourages young children to report their parents if they watch memes of Donald Trump dancing." Some other users even wrote, that the funds for the creation of this cartoon were allocated by American taxpayers.
Thus, the SBU did not release a cartoon calling for informing on relatives listening to songs in Russian. There is no information about such a campaign either on the official resources of the intelligence service or in reputable media. In addition, the PlusPlus TV channel, where the cartoon was allegedly broadcast, confirmed that the video used as evidence was fake.
Cover photo: social networks
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