In March 2025, information spread in Russian-language media and social networks about an unusual advertising campaign allegedly launched by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.

The publications were based on photographs of advertising banners: one of them depicts a smiling young man in a military uniform and characters from the popular game Roblox. The Ukrainian-language caption on the poster reads: “Are you 18–24 years old? Sign the contract and take your million! 1,000,000 hryvnia = 33,000,000,000 robux (units of game currency. - Ed.).” Another poster claims that for UAH 1 million you can get a premium subscription to Netflix for a period of 185 years.

This unusual advertisement was reported TASS, "Gazeta.ru", Ura.ru, "Prime", "RIA Novosti Crimea», "Arguments and facts" and other media, as well as Telegram channels such as "Resident"(313,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "RT in Russian"(229,000), "Truthfulness"(189,000), "Putin on Telegram"(178,000), "Ostashko! Important"(115,000), "Emergency / Crimea"(113,000) and Kotsnews (104,000).

Both images began to circulate shortly after the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense published on TikTok a video advertising short-term contract service for young Ukrainians. The video stated that for the payment of 1 million hryvnia due upon signing, a young man would be able to buy 15,625 cheeseburgers at McDonald’s. The video went viral and was widely discussed both in the Ukrainian media and in Russian pro-government Telegram channels. Some resources in their publications even united messages about this video and two banners, considering that these are parts of the same advertising campaign.

However, if the video was published in a verified account of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, then no traces of advertising about Netflix and Roblox could be found on the department’s resources. Moreover, all publications on this topic use the same two photographs. It is logical to assume that such a scandalous advertisement (as in the case of the video about cheeseburgers) would have attracted public attention and many different pictures of the banners would have appeared on social networks, but this did not happen. At the same time, there are no details in the pictures that allow them to be geolocated. The banners appear to have been added to genuine screenshots of advertising screens using image editing software.

Authenticity of viral pictures denied Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. “After a thorough check in all responsible structures, including the Ministry of Defense (the check took time), the Center reports that government agencies did not publish such advertising,” the department’s Telegram channel says. Press Secretary of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Dmitry Lazutkin in comments Ukrainian Channel 5 clarified that the ministry’s official banners advertising the “Contract 18–24” contain only details of this program and do not compare payments with a Netflix subscription or the Roblox virtual currency.

The earliest publication of both images that “Verified” was able to find appeared in the Telegram channel “Frivolous news» March 22 at 12:53 Moscow time. Previously this channel was already mentioned in our debriefings as a spreader of misinformation.

Thus, there is no evidence that an advertising campaign is being carried out in Ukraine in which the payment promised to contract workers is translated into years of subscription to Netflix or into currency on Roblox. Images allegedly confirming this first appeared on a pro-Russian Telegram channel amid discussions of a viral advertising video from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Cover photo: Telegram screenshot