In July 2025, a photograph allegedly showing the screen of an ATM in Ukraine went viral on the Internet. According to the photo, the device did not return the card to the client and suggested contacting the military registration and enlistment office about this. We have verified the authenticity of the image being distributed.
The photo allegedly shows the screen of an ATM located in Ukraine. In this case, the device shows the user an error message: “Your card will remain in the ATM. For details, contact your TCC and SP (Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support, an analogue of the Russian military registration and enlistment office. - Ed.).” Based on this photo, the authors of some Telegram channels done the conclusion is that this is how Ukrainians of military age are forced to come to the TCC when they use ATMs. Reported, that such “increasingly sophisticated methods” of replenishing troops have been developed by the Ukrainian authorities. “There are simply no words for how people in Ukraine are not being bullied anymore. You can’t withdraw your hard-earned money... Until the junta is demolished, it will be even worse,” writes the Telegram channel “Actually in Dnieper"(16,000 views at the time of writing this analysis).
According to the TGStat service, more than 100 similar Russian-language posts appeared on Telegram, which in total received about 330,000 views. Channels wrote about the photo:Abu"(62,000 views), Nina Vatt (32,000), "Kovpak's detachment" (19,000), "Lev Sharansky" (18,000), "Zek at war" (17,000), "Kryminforum 🇿 🇴 🇻"(14,000), etc. Popular posts with viral photos are also in X, one of tweets received 50,000 views. Similar publications can be found on VKontakte (examples here And here), Facebook and on YouTube, as well as on news and entertainment sites, including “Politicus" And JoyReactor.
Such posts and notes show the standard signs of a fake. Firstly, in such publications the same photograph is presented, and the authors do not indicate in which locality it was taken. If in Ukraine they really confiscated bank cards en masse from citizens of military age through ATMs, then Ukrainian-speaking social network users would write about it and share similar pictures taken in different cities. However, “Verified” did not find such messages.
Secondly, the earliest publication with a viral image (among those tracked “Verified”) did not appear in the Ukrainian-language segment of the Internet. The photo was initially posted on July 2 at 17:11 Moscow time in the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel “Frivolous news"(2500 views). Previously this channel has repeatedly mentioned in our analyzes as a distributor, and in some cases, the primary source of fakes. For example, “Frivolous News” was the first to publish falsified photos depicting advertising service in the Ukrainian army for a subscription to Netflix and game currency in Roblox, as well as announcement about the contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine for men over 60 years of age. Less than a minute later, a similar post with a photo of the ATM appeared in the Telegram channel “Shaman Rahu"(6200 views) - he was becoming the hero of several dozen “Verified” refutations.
Thirdly, there are no reports of such seizures of bank cards in the Ukrainian press. On the contrary, “Verified” found several refutations there. Thus, the Ukrainian state Center strategic communications and information security, fact-checking project StopFake and agency "Ukrinform"They called the photo a fake. Moreover, according to fact checkers, the device in the photo looks more like not an ATM, but a PrivatBank terminal for paying for various services (the device uses an interface typical for devices of this financial institution and its corporate colors).
Finally, if you do a reverse search on the image being circulated, you can find a similar image published online several years before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Similar result you can find it in Google by searching “PrivatBank terminal error”. That photo was published June 27, 2017 on the website “Svidok.info” - the image served as an illustration in the material about malfunctions in PrivatBank terminals.
The terminal in the photo from eight years ago gave the user an error code TS200944 - the same one can be seen in the photo that went viral in 2025. However, in the old photograph on the screen there was not a word about the TCC or bank card. The error text read: “Your operation will be processed later.” At the same time, at the bottom of both images you can see the same details in the reflection: for example, people wearing the same clothes, as well as the same menu items.
In addition to the error text, the two images have other differences. So, the 2025 version has green elements of the device’s body at the top and bottom, which are not in the old photo. The angles and glare on the white part of the screen are different, and the font on the new photo does not match used V terminals PrivatBank (this is especially noticeable when comparing the letters “a”, “e”, “l”, “d” and “z”). In addition, the circle of the red smiley is noticeably distorted. All this indicates that the eight-year-old image was altered in a photo editor.
Thus, a fake photograph of a Ukrainian ATM, allegedly not issuing a card to the user and sending him to the TCC, has circulated on the RuNet. The photo that became the basis for the fake was taken no later than 2017. It shows the screen of a Ukrainian bank terminal, which had different text. Previously "Verified" sorted it out a similar fake with a fake photo - in 2024, it was falsely reported that Ukrainian ATMs had set a limit on cash withdrawals for men of military age.
Cover photo: social networks
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