In April 2025, a photograph of a gravestone spread across the Internet, with the inscription “illegally mobilized” under the portrait of a man. Media and Telegram channels claim that the Ukrainian court demanded that the man’s mother remake the monument. We have verified the accuracy of this story.
A photo of the supposed tombstone of a fallen Ukrainian soldier went viral on April 2. Engraved on the slab is a portrait of a man, the name Grigory Vyacheslavovich Oleinik, dates of life and the signature “illegally mobilized” in Ukrainian. Along with this photograph, an image of a document is usually distributed, which states: the information on the tombstone is recognized as defamatory to honor and dignity, and the mother of the deceased serviceman is obliged to remove the inscription at her own expense within five working days.
Similar posts were posted by Telegram channels such as “Skeptic"(141,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Ukraine.ru"(134,000), "Sheikh Tamir", (113 000), "Kot Kostyan - official channel"(76,000), "Alexander Semchenko" (76,000) and "Gasparyan"(66,000). The media also reported on the trial “Another Ukraine", "Military Review", "Constantinople", News.ru, "Notebook» and others. Some resources, for example Life.ru and Telegram channel "Sanya in Florida” (513,000 views) simply shared a photo of a tombstone.
In Ukraine at least from 2024 there are serious problems with mobilization - they are also stated officials, And foreign partners Kyiv. To combat the shortage of manpower at the front, the authorities are gradually changing legislation: for example, from March 2025 toughened up criteria for obtaining a reservation and deferment. Russian officials and propagandists often talk about Kyiv’s problems with mobilization, often relaying fake news on this topic, and “Verified” regularly disassembles similar statements.
All Telegram channels and media outlets that reported on the supposed tombstone publish the same photograph of the gravestone. In front of her lie flowers tied with a yellow-blue ribbon, and on the sides there are Ukrainian flags. The date of death is indicated on the tombstone - February 10, 2025.
The second image is a snapshot of the ruling of the Brovary Interdistrict Court of the Kyiv Region, which was issued on March 31, 2025. The lawsuit, it follows from the document, was filed by the Brovary Ritual Service utility company, and Olga Vladimirovna Oleynik is listed as the defendant. Telegram channels and media write that this is the mother of Grigory Oleynik, whose grave is shown in the first photo.
These two images (especially in combination with each other) raise a lot of questions. If you believe them, then from the moment of the alleged death of the Ukrainian military man to the court verdict, about a month and a half passed, and during this time the mother of the deceased allegedly managed to receive her son’s body, bury him, order and install a monument, thereby causing discontent among fellow citizens and even surviving a legal battle with one of the ritual services of the Kyiv region. Even if we assume that the woman found out about the death of her child almost immediately (which is far from always feasible in combat conditions) and received the body as soon as possible, the cost of making and installing a tombstone it takes time. Ukrainian workshops give different deadlines, but usually they ask to give them two months for this, and also recommend waiting a year from the moment of burial to allow the soil on the grave to settle. In addition, the first photograph, according to this logic, was taken between February 10 and the end of March, but there are no traces of snow or slush in the picture, which are typical for the off-season in the Kyiv region.
At the same time, the proposed court ruling contains a large number of inaccuracies that are unusual in official papers. Firstly, the surname of the defendant and her son from the document differs from the surname of the military man from the gravestone: in the court ruling - Oliynik, and on the monument - Oleynik. Secondly, the resolution does not indicate the number of the case under consideration and there is not a single reference to the legislative acts on the basis of which the decision was made. Thirdly, there are numerous grammatical errors in the text: for example, at the beginning of the document the word “goloyuchego” is used instead of the correct “golovoyuchyogo” (“presiding” - Ukrainian), although at the end the same word is given correctly.
Finally, the resolution does not correspond to publicly available data on Ukrainian judicial practice. So, it says that the case against Oleinik was administrative, but the Brovary Interdistrict Court, judging by its website, mainly considers criminal proceedings or civil claims; decisions made by him on administrative offenses are rare (more often he deals with them Kyiv District Administrative Court). The resolution was signed by the chairman of the court, D. D. Luspennik, and judge O. V. Belokon. According to open sources, Dmitry Dmitrievich Luspennik ranks job title Secretary of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, in 2023 he will temporarily performed duties of the chairman of the Supreme Court of the country. It is extremely unlikely that it was he who presided over the meeting of the inter-district court in the Kyiv region on an administrative case. Moreover, all recent decisions can be found in the “Catalogue of court decisions” on the Ukrainian website YouControl, and the viral document is not there - as among the decisions Brovary interdistrict, so district administrative court.
Both images, as a reverse image search shows, originally appeared on pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. Earliest fast, containing these photographs and discovered by “Verified”, was posted on April 2 at 13:54 Moscow time in the Sheikh Tamir channel. He regularly meets in analyzes of “Verified” as a distributor and primary source of fake news. Then the photographs appeared in other Russian-language channels and media, as well as in X, Instagram And TikTok. The images became popular in English-speaking segment of social networks.
Fact checkers from the Ukrainian project StopFake contacted for a comment on the “Brovary Ritual Service,” which was allegedly the plaintiff in the lawsuit with Olga Oleynik. Representatives of the company said that they did not bury a military man with that name, that they do not work in the cemetery from the viral photo, and that they did not participate in the courts. Chairman of the Brovary City Council Igor Sapozhko on his Facebook page statedthat serviceman Grigory Oleinik is neither on the list of those killed nor among those buried on the Walk of Fame in Brovary. There is no serviceman with the same name and date of death in databases dead Ukrainian military personnel, information about whom volunteers collect.
Despite these denials, on April 7, another photograph of a tombstone, this time allegedly lying on the ground and covered in white paint, circulated on Telegram channels and the media. The signatures stated that activists in the Kyiv region destroyed Oleinik’s burial place because of an inscription about the illegality of mobilization. Similar posts appeared in Telegram channels “Sheikh Tamir"(103,000 views), "Military report"(44,000), "Gasparyan" (39,000) and "tough nut"(20,000), as well as on social networks "Constantinople" and on the website "Another Ukraine"
There are no signs of destruction on the monument itself, and the paint is distributed quite neatly: it covers the portrait and part of the inscription, but did not get on either the grass or the flowers. At the same time, the picture shows the same bouquet, tied with a yellow-blue ribbon, as in the earlier image. It looks strange that, although almost a week passed between the publication of the first and second photographs, the flowers remained just as fresh and the vandals carefully placed them on the destroyed monument. It is noteworthy that the date by which the court ordered the inscription on the slab to be corrected coincides with the date that photographs of the destroyed tombstone appeared on the Internet.
This image also spread mainly through Russian-language Telegram channels, first post appeared on the “Bear” channel on April 7 at 13:48 Moscow time. This channel has also repeatedly featured in analyzes “Verified” as the primary source of misinformation. Photo with the tombstone torn down later posted Irish publicist Chey Bowes, famous for his pro-Russian statements and collaborating with RT. According to his version, the soldier’s grave was desecrated several times, but the mother still did not agree to remove the inscription about illegal mobilization. Bowes did not write about the court ruling.
Thus, the existence of the tombstone of the deceased Ukrainian soldier with the signature “Illegally mobilized” and the resulting legal proceedings are not confirmed by data from authoritative sources. The photographs used as evidence appear to have been falsified, the text of the court ruling contains a lot of errors and inaccuracies, and the document itself is not publicly available. At the same time, the company that is listed as a plaintiff there denies its participation in the process.
Cover photo: social networks
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