At the end of February 2025, the Russian media and Telegram channels reported that in the Ukrainian city, instead of a dismantled monument, the Russian emperor was going to erect a monument in honor of the Swedish king that opposed him. We checked the reliability of such publications.
Information about the perpetuation of Charles XII in Poltava began to spread in Russian-speaking Telegram channels shortly after it became known about the demolition of the monument to Peter I in this city. Local authorities were informed of such plans, in particular, Telegram channels "Newsach / Dv"(217,000 views at the time of writing this analysis),"Kostyan Cat - Official Channel"(82 000) and"In fact in Zaporozhye"(19,000). In an interview with the radio station "Says Moscow"This news was commented by the State Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov - in his opinion, such a development of events is logical, since Ukrainians" due to low intellectual development "have always chosen the side of the losers. The words of the politician quoted the newspaper "Arguments and facts", TV channel "Duma-TV" and magazine "Homeland".
In the summer of 1709 Poltava battle became one of the key events of the Northern War. The Russian troops were commanded by Emperor Peter I, Swedish - King Charles XII. The victory of the Russian army in the Battle of Poltava was a turning point in the confrontation of the two countries. To her 200th anniversary in Poltava opened Memorial Museum-Reserve, and in 1950 at the entrance to the museum Put Monument to Peter I, who was in the local cadet corps before the revolution.
On February 20, the Executive Committee of the Poltava City Council decided to demolish the monument, referring to order Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine of January 31, 2025 and the law adopted in 2023 "On the condemnation and prohibition of propaganda of Russian imperial policy in Ukraine and the decolonization of toponymy". Already February 25, the monument was dismantled reported On Facebook Secretary of the Poltava City Council Ekaterina Yamshchikova. Later she Claimedthat the monument was transferred to the storehouse of the museum, before the entrance to which he stood.
The authors of the reports that they plan to erect a monument to Karl XII at this place also refer to Yamshchikov. As confirmation, they published a video with the logo of the Ukrainian telemarathon “єini News” (“United News”). The video tells about the demolition of the monument to Peter I, and then the sunbathing voice reports that, according to Yamshchikova, a monument to Charles XII will appear in its place in November. At the same time, the direct speech of the Secretary of the City Council in the video was not used.
"Verified" found that the first half of the audio road of this video almost completely coincides with plot Ukrainian news program of TSN, which was aired on February 25, 2025. Only the phrase was cut from the message that for the past three years the monument stood, covered with a black bag. At the same time, the installation of a new monument is already discussed in the second half of the video, which shared Telegram channels, but this was not in the plot of TSN.
We analyzed this part of audio traffic using the AIC Contain recognition services HIVE MODERATION And Hiya. Both showed that the sound in the second half of the video is generated by a neural network (with a probability of 99.9% and 97%, respectively).
FACECHERS from the Ukrainian project "ґVAR MedIA" Turned For comment to Yamshchikova. She said that the question of which monument could appear in Poltava at the site of the dismantled monument to Peter I was not yet discussed. “The decision on new monuments will be made only after a wide discussion with the public. However, now this issue is not on the agenda, ”said the secretary of the Poltava City Council.
The earliest publication that contained a refereized news plot and which was able to detect “verified” appeared on February 26 at 15:53 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Kharkov Rus".
Thus, the news of the plans by November 2025 to erect a monument to Karl XII in Poltava is not true. The video, which is reported, was created using artificial intelligence based on the edited news release on Ukrainian television.
Photo on the cover: Katerina Yamshchikova account on Facebook
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