The propagandists used footage from a real Voice of America report about Ukrainian students in the United States. However, the part where the girl talks about black classmates selling drugs and claims that she has the right to study for free was generated using AI.
Pro-Russian sources are sharing a video clip in which a Ukrainian schoolgirl, who now lives in New York, allegedly complains about her new school. The girl says that it was difficult for her to get used to the «large number of black classmates» because they constantly offered her drugs, and complains that classes were canceled many times due to the shooting threats. At the end of the video, she claims that she transferred from a public school to a private one: the girl says that it is expensive, but the tuition is paid for not by her family, but by American taxpayers, which she considers quite fair.
However, this video is a skillful fake. At the end of December 2024, Voice of America did in fact release a short story about Ukrainian schoolchildren who, due to a full-scale war, moved to New York and were forced to get used to studying in a new environment. The girl in the video is named Sofia Goliney and she studies at the private St. George Academy. However, the fragment where the girl allegedly complains about black students, drug dealers and shootings, and also claims that she should study for free, was created by propagandists using artificial intelligence. There is no such thing in the original video. The fabricated fragment was illustrated by propagandists with a cut of stock footage, which is missing in the real video.
In the original, the girl only says that she is happy to study at a private institution, where there are many Ukrainians besides her — it is easier for her to find a common ground with her peers. In general, Sofia speaks very well of the school and is sad that her studies will soon end. Another student in the video, Mark Ostapchuk, says that the Ukrainian-speaking community of the school and music lessons help him cope with homesickness. «Just imagine any teenager who is traumatized by being torn from a familiar culture — home, family, parents. Sometimes both parents, sometimes one of them, and they are forced to study in a foreign language. At least here they are surrounded by other people who are in the same situation. We have been helping Ukrainian students since 1947. Yes. But now, with this latest version of the war, which actually began in 2014, when Russia occupied Donbas, and the new invasion in 2022 – which has been going on for three years – there are many more students,» says Andrew Stasiv, director of St. George’s Academy.
We recently debunked a video fabricated in a similar way in the article Fake: Ukrainian Women Make Up 94% of Erotic Streamers — Human Rights Watch.
