At the end of July 2025, a photograph circulated on social networks, allegedly showing the mother of an Ukrainian Armed Forces fighter killed at the front with a certificate for raising her son. Next to her is a smiling man with a thumbs up. We have verified the authenticity of this photo.
On August 2, he posted a viral photo on his Telegram channel. Colonelcassad blogger Boris Rozhin (152,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). “In the Chernigov City Council, the mother of a deceased Ukrainian soldier was given a certificate “for raising a hero.” The letter reads: “We offer our condolences.” The official, however, shows no condolences - he smiles and gives a satisfied thumbs up. We understand his positivity - he won’t be sent to the front. Unlike the son of a grief-stricken mother,” the post said. It was also accompanied by an enlarged fragment of the photograph, which showed the letter.
According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, more than 70 similar posts had appeared on Telegram, which in total received about 500,000 views. Among those who posted photos are the channels “Ukraine.ru"(128,000 views), "Actually in Kharkov"(78,000), "Staff Correspondent"(46,000), "Ramsay" (31,000), "Actually in Zaporozhye"(19,000), etc. Publications about the viral image are also found in "VKontakte" and on news sites, including "Ukraine.ru", Pressa24 And "ZOV Chernihiv"
In a fragment of the viral photo, you can see the name of the awarded woman - her name is allegedly Elena Valentinovna Tarasenko. “For raising a hero (posthumously). We offer our condolences for the bereavement,” reads the text on the letter. The date of the expected award is also indicated there - July 28, 2025. The name of the man captured in the photo, or at least his position in the Chernigov City Council, is not specified.
“Verified” could not find any information in the Ukrainian media and other open sources about Elena Tarasenko, who lost her son in the war. We also could not determine what kind of man is depicted in the photograph. There is no person with such appearance in list deputies of the Chernigov City Council, and on website and in social networks There is no news from this body about the presentation of such a certificate.
If the image being distributed is not on the official resources of the Chernigov City Council, then where did it appear on the RuNet? In most of these publications, the watermark of the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel is visible in the photo “Actually in Kharkov", where the corresponding post appeared on July 30 at 21:32 Moscow time. However, "Verified" found out that the original source was different. The earliest post with a viral photo that we were able to track came out a few hours earlier, at 16:26, on the Telegram channel “Urgent and accurate"(2000 views). This channel has already been caught in publishing fakes (one of which specifically concerned the forgery of letters), and sometimes was becoming their original source.
If you look closely at the photo, you will notice several strange details. For example, the woman's fingertips appear deformed, the stems of some flowers appear purple, and the pattern on the tablecloth appears uneven and asymmetrical. In addition, the location of the text and coat of arms on the document in the full version of the photograph and in its fragment is different.
This can be seen especially clearly when images are superimposed on each other.
The artifacts described above may indicate that the basis of the photograph was generated by a neural network, and then the image was further processed in a photo editor. “Verified” analyzed the image in six AI image detectors, but the results were inconsistent. The services used rated the likelihood that the photo was created using AI as high in half the cases. In our analyzes we have repeatedly pointed out that checks in such detectors can only serve as an additional argument, since these services sometimes give both false positive and false negative results.
Journalists of the Ukrinform agency contacted For comment please contact the press service of the Chernigov City Council. They stated that the photograph distributed on the RuNet, as well as the letter depicted on it, were fakes. “The photo sent does not show a letter from the Chernihiv City Council,” journalists were told. The press service also noted that the Chernihiv City Council and the Executive Committee are presenting certificates of honor, the execution of which approved a separate act and is very different from the award from the distributed photograph.
At the same time, a certificate template with design elements like in the viral photo can be found on profile websites.
Thus, the distributed photograph showing the mother of a deceased Ukrainian soldier and a smiling Chernigov official who allegedly presented the woman with a certificate for raising her son is a fake. Most likely, this photo was generated using a neural network, and later a fake letter was added to it.
Cover photo: social networks
- Is it true that a Verkhovna Rada deputy wrote a letter to the mother of a deceased soldier using ChatGPT?
- Is it true that in the Kharkov region they awarded wives who “surrendered” their husbands to the military registration and enlistment office?
- Is it true that the photo shows portraits of Zelensky and Biden in the office of the school principal in Zaporozhye?
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