On June 21, the Facebook account “Back Home to Europe” (1,2) and Russian-speaking user Ирина Лагутина shared a video that shows people in military uniform trying to take away a child from a citizen, and then throwing the citizen to the ground. According to the accompanying description, the video reflects the ongoing mobilization in Ukraine.
The video footage with the false description was distributed in a manipulative way. No one involved in the incident confirms the mobilization version. According to Ukrainian media, the video shows physical violence against Dmytro Pavlov by the guards of MP Nikolay Tyshchenko. According to Tyshchenko himself, the man in the video is the head of security at the “bot farm” and interfered in the investigation himself.
The circulated video shows an incident that took place in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on June 20. Two versions regarding the incidents are circulating in the Ukrainian media. Neither of them concerns conscription.
The first version was spread by Nikolay (Mykola) Tyshchenko, a non-faction MP in Rada. According to him, he was in Dnipro to expose illegal call centers and “bot farms.” The MP claims that up to 300 people were detained as a result of exposing four such organizations, that the person seen in the video is the head of security of these organizations, and that this person himself approached the place where the operation was being carried out and tried to stage a provocation. Tyshchenko did not specify who the people in military uniforms, who can be seen in the video, are.
It is worth noting that until January 2023, Nikolay Tyshchenko was a member of the ruling party “Servant of the People.” He was expelled from the party for violating the decree of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to which Ukrainian public officials are forbidden to leave the territory of Ukraine during martial law, except for business trips. The expulsion from the political party did not affect Tyshchenko’s parliamentary mandate.
According to a different version disseminated by Ukrainian media (1,2), the video shows Tyshchenko’s guards physically attacking Dmitro Pavlov, a former member of the special unit “Kraken.”
In a commentary to the media, a spokesperson for the National Police in the Dnipropetrovsk Region confirmed that two criminal proceedings had been opened on the facts of intentional infliction of minor bodily injury and illegal deprivation of liberty. The police also said that neither local nor regional law enforcers cooperated with Tyshchenko and did not conduct a search.
In addition, the special unit “Kraken” confirmed that the citizen in civilian clothes seen in the video, who sustained bodily injuries, was a former serviceman of their unit.
About the sources:
The Facebook account Back Home to Europe regularly publishes anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western posts. Myth Detector has repeatedly checked disinformation spread by two accounts with an identical name in the past. The page was created in opposition to the campaign of nongovernmental organizations, Home to Europe, which aims to support Georgia’s integration into the European Union.
Russian-speaking user Ирина Лагутина has also disseminated fake information in the past. Some of her posts have been flagged by fact-checking organizations.
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