In July 2025, there were reports in the Russian media and social networks that an adult schoolboy died while performing a combat mission, who in a viral video answered the question “Where is Ukraine?” He put his hand to his heart and answered: “Here.” We have verified the accuracy of this news.
Publications about the supposed death of the meme hero appeared on RuNet on July 10. “In the SVO zone, 19-year-old Artyom Melnik, who became a meme in 2014, was eliminated. A participant in a propaganda video recorded by the Kyiv junta in 2014, which later became a meme, signed a “youth contract” with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but a couple of months later he was killed for the foreign interests of the “main patriots” of Ukraine. The Ukrainian media preferred to mention this news in passing and not focus attention on it,” says the Telegram channel “Ukraine.ru"(112,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). Similar note published on the website of this publication.
According to the TGStat service, about 100 similar posts appeared on Telegram, which in total received more than 450,000 views. For example, the channels “Front bird"(56,000 views), "Notepad Russia 18+" (52,000), "Voenndelo (Military Affairs)"(44,000), "The Countess runs across the pond with a changed face" (34,000), "Zuben_co news"(32,000), Nina Vatt (26,000), etc. On VKontakte, the news received more than 100,000 views in the public “World War III" In addition, similar posts can be found in X (examples here, here And here) And "Zene", as well as on news sites, including "Politicus", "Notebook", Top News, "ZOV Zaporozhye" And "Tver news feed"
All the posts mentioned above contain the same screenshot, allegedly taken on the Memorial website. This is Ukrainian project, which collects, verifies and publishes information about those killed during the war with Russia - both civilian and military. According to the viral image, the killed hero of the meme was named Artyom Melnik, he served in the 92nd separate assault brigade. “The soldier... died on June 15, 2025 while performing a combat mission at the front. Defender is forever 19 [years old],” the screenshot reads. The obituary also includes a photo of the young man.
The meme in question is appeared in the fall of 2014. Then a short Ukrainian-language message went viral on the Internet. video, in which a geography teacher calls a student to the blackboard and asks him to show different countries on the map. After the question “Where is Ukraine?” he puts his hand on his heart and says: “Here.” Subsequently, this frame with the boy and the word “Here” superimposed on top began to be used in memes.
Originally video appeared on the YouTube channel of the Kyiv theater studio "Travel bag» October 14, 2014. At the same time, according to posts on the “Sacvoyage” Facebook page, the social video was filmed no later than September 12. That day they published several photographs with young actors, and on one The main character and his colleague were captured from the photographs. According to the caption, the boy who came to the board in the video was named Ilya Koltovskoy. "Verified" confirmed this with posts on the page of the Ukrainian play, where he also played, and also established that Ilya is the son Igor Koltovsky, artistic director of "Sacvoyage". We found page young man on Facebook, but he has not updated it since 2018. Nevertheless, in his father’s account you can also find more recent photographs with Ilya - for example, in post 2021. In that photo, he doesn’t look at all like Artyom Melnik from the viral obituary. At the same time, there are no messages about the death of his son on the page of Koltovsky Sr.
In turn, the Ukrinform agency found out, which is on the website of the “Memorial” project No records of a serviceman named Artyom Melnik. But the journalists found obituary of the deceased Ukrainian with the same photograph. His name was Sergei Porokhnitsky, he served in the 44th separate artillery brigade and died on November 28, 2022 at the age of 22 while performing a combat mission near the city of Druzhkovka in the Donetsk region. The biography of Porokhnitsky presented on the website says that he was born in Vinnitsa; his filming in a viral social video or, in principle, his acting career are not mentioned. In July 2025, on Memorial’s social networks reminded about the death of this soldier.
According to Ukrinform, the fake screenshot was created using a graphic editor. “Verified” cannot agree with this statement - judging by the fact that the font on the fake completely matches what is used on the site, most likely the screenshot was fabricated using code changes site pages.
As for the original source of the fake screenshot, we found its earliest appearance in the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel “Front bird", which was mentioned at the beginning of this analysis. There, the post was published on July 10 at 18:34 Moscow time. “It’s curious that enemy resources didn’t give much notice to this news. Our media pay more [attention]. Now do you understand who has morals and who doesn’t?” — this is how the channel’s author reacted to the fact that the Ukrainian press did not distribute the fake screenshot.
Thus, the boy from the “Tut” meme did not die in the war in Ukraine. Pro-Russian Telegram channels and media distributed a fake screenshot of the obituary of a deceased Ukrainian soldier, who was presented as a grown-up actor from a viral social video. There were no reports of the death of the meme hero either in the Ukrainian press or on his father’s social networks.
“Verified” has more than once analyzed similar fakes, the authors of which “killed” the heroes of memes and viral videos. Among them are false reports of death Isaac Velichko (he became famous thanks to a video in which he complains that he wants chocolate), hero TikTok video about cleaning the general's garage and girls, the first to sign a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine under the program for recruiting young Ukrainians.
Cover photo: social networks
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