In May 2025, Russian media circulated a photo allegedly taken in a Ukrainian city. It is alleged that unknown persons placed the motto of a Russian military unit on one of the local landmarks. We have verified the authenticity of this photo.
On May 17 and 18, Russian media, citing the deputy chief of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces, commander of the Akhmat special forces, Lieutenant General Apti Alaudinov, published a photo of one of the symbols of the city of Sumy - a pre-revolutionary gazebo - with an inscription in red paint, which was allegedly left by vandals. “On an elegant architectural structure—an altanka—located on Pokrovskaya Square in the center of Sumy, the combat motto of the special forces “Akhmat” of the Russian Defense Ministry “Akhmat is strength!” is no less elegantly depicted,” wrote in his Telegram channel Alaudinov. — Sumy is a Russian city! Wait for us, brothers! We haven’t forgotten about you and will definitely come!”
This was reported TASS, "Vesti.ru", "Arguments and facts", "Gazeta.ru", Lenta.ru, RT, News.ru, Life, "Constantinople"and other major publications.
Sumy is a Ukrainian regional center, located just 30 km from the border with Russia. At the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, the city turned out to be on the front line, but after the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces it was pushed back. Nevertheless, Sumy continues live under fire. In the spring of 2025, experts are increasingly They say about the risk of a new offensive by the Russian army in the Sumy region. Judging by publications in the Russian media, military operations in the border areas are also carried out by soldiers of the Akhmat special forces.
Historical gazebo counts one of the symbols of Sumy. She located in the very center of the city, in the park on Pokrovskaya Square. About the gazebo regularly - in a tourist and cultural context - write Ukrainian media, however, “Verified” did not find any traces of news about pro-Russian graffiti on the gazebo in the local information field, although such an event should have become resonant at least on a city scale. At the same time, only one frame with a gazebo is being circulated in pro-Russian media - the same one that Alaudinov published.
Fact checkers from the Ukrainian project StopFake We contacted the Main Directorate of the National Police for the Sumy region for comment. A representative of the department told our colleagues that there had been no complaints from citizens regarding pro-Russian graffiti and the information was not true. Moreover, no later than May 19, the police examined the gazebo and did not find any inscriptions on it. As proof, they provided StopFake with a photo from the scene. Some difference in the lushness and color of the tree crowns suggests that the viral photo was taken not in May 2025, but earlier.
Let's take a closer look at the inscription allegedly left on the gazebo and compare the viral photo with another photo from open sources.
It is easy to notice that the contours of almost all the letters in the inscription, except the first and last, pass through places where there are rather large through holes in the fence in the form of stars and diamonds. This makes applying such continuous text impossible. As for the outer letters, the projection of the gazebo is octagonal, so they had to be turned at a different angle, according to the position of the columns. The inscription could only look like the viral photo if it had already been applied to the photo using a photo editor.
Thus, both the Sumy police data and the analysis of the image distributed by pro-Russian resources indicate a fake. First photo distributed Alaudinov, already mentioned above, on May 17 at 22:47 Moscow time.
Cover photo: social networks
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