The information that 700 prosecutors received the combatant status is not credible and has nothing to do with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine or changes in the Ukrainian law on mobilization. This news first appeared in March 2016. However, neither the names of the alleged 700 prosecutors nor any specific data about them were ever made public. The mass distribution of such information and the identical comments on it indicate that the fake news is another Russian disinformation aimed at destabilizing the country internally.
Social networks and Russian sources are widely spreading information that 700 Ukrainian prosecutors allegedly received the status of a participant in hostilities during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. Dozens of social network users publish an almost identical text, and to illustrate their words they use a screenshot of the Censor.NET page on the X social network. The screenshot from January 30, 2024 presents information about the recent draft law on mobilization. According to the authors of the publications, these two stories are related to each other.
«700 prosecutors received the status of combatants? How? After all, they are exempt from mobilization. A riddle. How did 700 prosecutors get this status while sitting in their offices? Ah, exactly. Slaves should not ask questions» — this text accompanies almost all publications on this topic.
In reality, the information that 700 prosecutors received the combatant status is not credible and has nothing to do with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, nor with changes in the Ukrainian draft law on mobilization. The latter was approved on January 30 of this year by the Cabinet of Ministers and submitted for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada. However, the Ukrainian parliament has not yet voted on draft law No. 10449, which is widely discussed, even in the first reading. Despite this, Russian propaganda predictably spreads many false narratives about the new mobilization rules in Ukraine. Information about «700 prosecutors» is one of them.
For the first time, the information about 700 prosecutors receiving combatant status appeared in March 2016, long before Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. Then it was about the Anti-Terrorist Operation in Donbas (ATO). However, this news was also not credible back then. The Ukrainian media wrote about only one prosecutor, Hryschuk, who indeed defended the Donetsk airport. Nothing was reported about another 699 prosecutors. Their names have also never been released. The post as of 2016 only mentions the property of some Ukrainian prosecutors, but nothing is said about them having combatant status. Moreover, the round number of 700 raises many questions, and the author of the publication never provided actual proof of his words. Later, this topic was raised again in 2019, with claims against the new president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi. Then an article was published on the Patriot of Dnipropetrovsk website calling on Volodymyr Zelenskyi to pay attention and deal with the heroes of the ATO.
So, this topic is not new. It has been used several times since 2016. Now it is obvious that the «700 prosecutors» narrative is attempted to be tied to the modern context and the new bill on mobilization, which is widely discussed in Ukrainian society. In particular, such publications receive many reactions, reposts and emotional comments about the current situation on the battlefield, corruption in Ukraine and inefficient defense enterprises. All the aforementioned facts indicate that this «news» is another Russian disinformation and an attempt to use sensitive internal topics to destabilize the country.
StopFake continues to refute similar fakes in the stories Fake: Ukrainians Start a «Zelensky is a Murderer» Online Flash Mob After the Il-76 Plane Crash and Fake: Ukrainian Military Commissar Killed While Delivering Drafting Papers.
