The video was most likely edited. There is a discrepancy between the facial expressions of the man and the words he is saying. In addition, the landscape and weather conditions depicted in the video suggest that the original video was filmed before winter began. Additionally, the press service of the 119th separate brigade of the Military Police in the Chernihiv region stated that the person in the video does not serve in their unit.
Social media users are actively spreading a video in which a Ukrainian military officer allegedly says that his unit is leaving their positions en masse. The man in the video complains that the command “abandoned” them to “wait for inevitable death” “without water and food.” This person, according to numerous publications, is a serviceman of the 167th battalion of the 119th Territorial Defense Brigade, which allegedly left its positions near Bilohorivka, Luhansk region.
Initially, pro-Russian Telegram channels began to spread this 20-second video clip. In some videos, you can see the TikTok logo and the username @shket057.
Profile @shket057 published this video on December 7, 2023. All the previous publications on this page were made back in October 2021. So far, this video has more than 73,000 likes, 6,400 reposts and 4,300 comments. The fact that supportive comments under @shket057’s video were mostly left pages by empty pages also seems suspicious.
At the same time, analysts of the Center for Combating Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine found out that the @shket057 profile essentially duplicates the real page of the user @shket059. The page @shket059 belongs to Yevhen Ishchenko, who, judging by his profile, is a serviceman of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. However, the man did not publish such a video on his original page. Moreover, the video we are analyzing features a completely different person.
The press service of the 119th separate brigade of the Military Police in the Chernihiv region stated that the person in the video does not serve in their unit.
This video may have been edited. At the 10th second of the video clip, you can notice a discrepancy between the person’s facial expressions and his speech. This indicates that, most likely, the fake audio track was superimposed on the original video clip.
Due to the video’s low quality, StopFake journalists were unable to find the original clip. Yet there is no doubt that it was shot before winter began. According to the hydrometeorological center and weather archives, there is snow and ice in the Bilohorivka area of the Donetsk region. In the video, you can see dry stubble, which is characteristic of the autumn or spring periods.
The Ukrainian military continues to hold positions in the Lyman direction, in particular in Bilohorivka, Luhansk region. This, in addition to the reports of the Armed Forces General Staff, is also confirmed by analysts of the DeepState project, who analyze the situation at the front using intelligence from open OSINT sources.
Previously, StopFake journalists analyzed a similar psychological operation to demotivate Ukrainians. Photographs of Ukrainian soldiers praying for salvation on their knees were generated by a neural network and widely distributed online.
