At the end of March 2025, a photograph of an unusual doll, which was allegedly offered for purchase in Ukrainian stores, circulated in Russian-language media and social networks. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.
A photo of Barbie with a prosthesis and in a military uniform with a chevron in the form of the Ukrainian flag became popular in Russian-language media and Telegram channels on March 25. The packaging in which the toy is located is painted in national colors, and in its lower part the expected name of the doll is indicated - Oksana, printed in a corporate font. Some resources that published the photo specify that it was taken at the Detsky Mir store in Kyiv.
The image was shared by the publication “Constantinople", "Notebook", "Moscow region today", "Another Ukraine" And "Crimean newspaper", as well as Telegram channels "Uncle Slava"(194,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Zergulio (165,000), "Voblya • news"(154,000), "Kot Kostyan - official channel"(81,000), Borisenko Dmitriy (61,000), "Baybayden» (54,000), etc.
Mattel, which produces the original Barbie dolls, has at least twice released dolls with prosthetic legs - in 2019 And 2023 years. The toys were developed as part of the fight against stigmatization of people with physical disabilities. Over the years, the same Fashionistas line also included dolls in a wheelchair, on crutches, with Down syndrome and even Blind Barbie. From time to time, Mattel releases dolls that are based on outstanding female athletes, directors, activists, scientists and just women of different professions. For example, in 2020, a kind of model for Barbie the fencer became Ukrainian athlete, Olympic champion Olga Kharlan. So the very fact of releasing a doll depicting a military woman with a prosthesis theoretically fits into the policy of the manufacturing company.
Telegram channels and media are distributing two photographs of this Barbie. The first shows the doll in the interior of the store where it is presumably sold. In the second, vertically oriented photo, almost only the toy itself is visible. “Verified” did not find any other photographs of this doll in open sources.
Some publications claim that the doll was spotted in the Children's World in Kyiv. In this department store, judging by the information on its website, there are two toy stores: I love party and “Territory of Minimum Prices”. The first of them does not have an online catalog - you can evaluate the product range only by photo on the website "Children's World", and there are no such dolls there. In general, I love party specializes in selling holiday goods, so their assortment is unlikely to include Barbie in military uniform. On website The “Territory of Minimal Prices” store has an extensive catalog available, but there is no such toy there either (even in a separate section with patriotic goods, where you can buy things with Ukrainian symbols).
It can be assumed that the doll is not in the online catalog, but is available for purchase offline, or that it has already been withdrawn from sale. However, the interior from the viral photo and the photo from the “Territory of Minimum Prices” store do not match.
In the assortment of other large toy stores and popular Ukrainian marketplaces, whose websites were studied by “Verified”, such a doll is not available, like any other Barbie in military uniform (in some stores presented dolls with a prosthetic leg from the Fashionistas collection). Ukrainian media also did not cover the appearance of such a toy on the shelves of local stores, although the above-mentioned release of a doll in the image of the fencer Olga Kharlan attracted the attention of the country's largest media (“RBC - Ukraine", Hromadske, TSN etc.). It can be assumed that the Oksana doll is an initiative of local Ukrainian manufacturers who did not receive a license from Mattel, but their coverage in the press could also be expected - for example, in 2021, journalists talked about release doll inspired by the image of the deputy and commander of the volunteer medical battalion “Hospitaliers” Yana Zinkevich. Moreover, in this case we were talking about a single copy, and not industrial production for sale.
Information about the appearance of a doll in military uniform on the shelves of Ukrainian stores was distributed mainly in pro-Russian Telegram channels and the media. The first post with a photo of a toy that was found “Verified” was posted in the Telegram channel “Kryminforum” on March 25 at 14:31 Moscow time. This channel regularly appears in analyzes “Verified” as the primary source and distributor of fakes. Subsequently, other bloggers published Barbie’s photo, including Russian-speaking and the English-language segment of the social network X, where some tweets received thousands of views.
It is noteworthy that the vertical photograph circulated first, and the photograph of the store’s interior appeared only in the morning of the next day (his first published Telegram channel of the publication “Notepad” March 26 at 09:51. At first glance, it appears that the first photo is a cropped version of the second, but upon closer examination of the images, it becomes clear that the background to the right of the doll is different.
"Checked" analyzed the vertical image using Hive — a service for identifying content generated by artificial intelligence. The test results showed that the image was created by neural networks with a probability of more than 95%. Note that when analyzing a horizontal image with a store interior in the background, Hive makes a conclusion about its generative origin with much less confidence (slightly more than 27%). This may be due both to the imperfection of this and similar detectors, and to the peculiarities of their operation.
Thus, there is no evidence that Barbie with a prosthetic leg and in the uniform of the Armed Forces is sold in Ukraine. Only two pictures distributed by Kremlin sources are used as evidence. Moreover, both images, apparently, could have been generated by artificial intelligence.
Cover photo: social networks
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