In April 2025, a video went viral on the Internet, allegedly depicting the escape of Ukrainian men from military commissars. It is reported that this happened immediately after believers blessed Easter cakes in the church. We checked what's really going on in this recording.
On April 21, the video was shown in on air "Channel One". News presenter Maxim Sharafutdinov commented what is happening in the video: “Employees of the TCC [and SP] (Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support, an analogue of the military registration and enlistment office in Ukraine - Ed.), for whom nothing has been sacred for a long time, were on duty at the churches. They knew where the most people would be. Here is just one of the episodes. Parishioners came to bless the Easter cakes. But they were already waiting for them on the church grounds. The men are running in all directions. Instead of a holiday, I had to escape from people in uniform.” Edition "Ukraine.ru"in its Telegram channel (155,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) clarified that the arrival of the "Tetsk officers» eyewitnesses allegedly reported. Similar notes were published by other Russian media, including “Arguments and facts", "Gazeta.ru", Life.ru, Lenta.ru And "Evening Moscow"
The video was widely circulated on social networks. For example, it was shared by Telegram channels “The world today with "Yuri Podolyak"" (1.6 million), "KB"(247,000), "Two majors"(215,000), "Observer"(192,000), "Uncle Slava"(180,000), "Fisherman"(168,000), Voblya (128,000), Rus_criminal (108,000), "Bloodseeker 2.0"(104,000), "Petya the First"(88,000), "Tsargrad-TV"(81,000), Borisenko Dmitriy (58,000), "Special Operation Z" (55,000), "Notepad Russia 18+"(50,000), Nina Vatt (32,000) and Rogandar News (32,000). Similar posts can also be found on VKontakte (examples here, here, here, here And here) And X.
The 12-second video being distributed actually shows several men (at least seven) running out of the temple grounds to the sound of church bells, holding baskets that presumably contain Easter cakes and Easter eggs. However, the details of the video and the actions of the people captured on it cast doubt on whether they were running away from someone.
For example, people in military uniform who allegedly interrupted the Easter service were not included in the shot. In the video, you also cannot hear anyone present mentioning the appearance of TCC representatives. The person behind the scenes (perhaps this is the voice of the author of the video) says in Ukrainian only: “Everyone is running to eat Easter cakes. We got tired, hungry, and ran off to eat the Easter cakes.” Among these fleeing people are people of different ages, and not all men took off. Finally, it is not clear why every person allegedly escaping from the TCC employees took with them a basket, without which it would have been more convenient and faster to move around. The Easter cakes consecrated in the temple could be taken with them, for example, by their relatives.
Almost none of the publications mentioned at the beginning of this analysis specified where exactly the viral video was filmed. Telegram channel «Ukraine.ru“wrote that the recording was made somewhere in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine. On the social network X, in turn, is popular tweet user Russian Imperative (210,000 views), according to which the incident actually occurred in St. Petersburg. However, almost an hour later he left it like that replay (26,000): “Oh, damn it, this is not in St. Petersburg itself, but 2000 km from it - in Kyiv. Who cares".
All such posts contained a video with the same watermark, which indicated the name of the Ukrainian Telegram channel “First Political”. There's a video there appeared April 20 at 20:21 Moscow time, “Verified” could not find earlier publications. The post specified that the recording was made in Kolomyya - a city in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. We studied the panoramas of this city in the Google Street View service, but were unable to determine the territory of which temple was depicted in the video. It is quite possible that he is located in one of the nearby villages.
Kolomyia is located in western Ukraine. How explain fact checkers from the StopFake project, this region (mainly Transcarpathia) has its own Easter traditions. One of them is the so-called Easter races: in the morning after the service, local believers try to get home quickly, sometimes simply running away from the temple. Countsthat the one who comes running first will be accompanied by prosperity in the household over the next year, and if there is a bride or groom in the house, then she or he will definitely find a mate. About such a Ukrainian tradition in the comments under the video remembered users different social networks.
StopFake calls viral posts about this video “part of the Russian information campaign aimed at undermining the mobilization campaign in Ukraine.” The Center for Combating Disinformation (CPD) under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, commenting on the video, also paid attentionthat it was massively distributed by Russian sources. Although "Verified" repeatedly sorted out neglected pro-Kremlin channels fakes on the topic of mobilization in Ukraine, in this case we cannot fully agree with the conclusion of our Ukrainian colleagues.
At the time of writing this analysis, there was a viral video in the above-mentioned Telegram channel “First Political” accompanies Ukrainian-language caption: “The men ran out of the church with all their might. What happened there is unknown.” However, a flag in the messenger indicates that the post has been edited. Using the TGStat “Verified” service found out, that the actual text appeared only on April 20 at 20:30, and initially, 8 minutes earlier, the video was captioned like this: “The men ran away from the church with all their might when people in uniform arrived there.” At 20:40 the channel released a second post, where it was said: “It turned out that there is a tradition there, according to which it is believed that the first to reap the harvest is the one who first brings home the Easter cake.”
The authors of some other Ukrainian Telegram channels managed to copy the not yet modified version of the post. For example, the same publications were published at 20:41 simultaneously in the channels “Pentagon | Ukraine | Pentagon" (15,000), "Gorinich Ukraine"(13,000), "First official" (10,000), "News from Ukraine | Briefly about smut" (7600) and "Domino Ukraine"(5800). Judging by the fact that their descriptions indicate the same contacts for communication, they are all included in the same network. Judging by other posts in these channels, there is no serious reason to call them pro-Kremlin.
Viral videos can also be found in Telegram channels dedicated to life in Kolomyia. So, “Colomia | News" (1800 views) April 20 wrote, that the video shows how men run away from the church after the arrival of the military, and five days later with reference to the Center stated: There was no raid on the TCC, but this fake was started by the Russians. In the channel "Colomia 24/7| Noviny”(4,500 views) also shared a viral video, which is now captioned: “All the men ran away from the church in Kolomyia region.” However, the post was edited a few minutes after publication, and the TGStat service in this case does not allow you to view the original version. A similar situation occurred on the Frankiv Format blog on Instagram: April 20 there posted video with a caption about men escaping from people in uniform, but it was soon updated, talking about a local Easter tradition.
Thus, the viral video is unlikely to show the men escaping from TCC employees who showed up for the Easter service. People in uniform do not appear in the frame, and the parishioners ran along with baskets, which, apparently, contained consecrated food. Most likely, the men took part in a local tradition: they raced each other to bring home the Easter cake before everyone else. The video with a false signature was initially distributed by Ukrainian Telegram channels. Although some of them quickly corrected their posts, the disinformation was picked up and widely disseminated by pro-Kremlin resources.
Cover photo: social networks / @Politychnyi (Telegram)
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