Fake: the Security Service of Ukraine allegedly persecutes people for writing the word “Russia” with a capital letter
Propagandist anonymous Telegram channels, citing Mykolaiv collaborator Yurii Barbashov, are spreading claims that the Mykolaiv regional office of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is allegedly opening criminal cases against citizens who write the word “Russia” with a capital letter in chats or on social media. This fake was debunked by StopFake experts.
However, this is fake. There is no such provision in Ukrainian legislation, and grammatical norms are not grounds for criminal prosecution.
- No official confirmation: No Ukrainian state body – neither the Security Service of Ukraine, nor the Prosecutor General’s Office, nor the National Police – has made any official statements or published documents confirming the existence of such criminal cases or investigations.
- No article in the Criminal Code: The Criminal Code of Ukraine does not contain any article that would establish liability for writing the names of countries (or any other words) with a capital or lowercase letter. Criminal cases are initiated only for real crimes – such as treason, collaborationism, justification of aggression, or calls to overthrow the government – not for violations of grammatical rules.
- Grammar rules are not a crime: The recommendation of the National Commission on State Language Standards to write the name of the aggressor country in lowercase applies to informal, emotionally charged or derogatory texts. Failure to follow this recommendation is not a criminal offense and does not deny standard rules in official documents, where country names are still written with capital letters.
- The original source of this fake is Yurii Barbashov, who himself is a suspect in a criminal case for collaborationism and aiding the aggressor state and faces 10 to 12 years in prison. His statements are not a credible source.
This fake is aimed at intimidating Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine and spreading distrust toward Ukrainian state and law enforcement institutions, creating a false impression of the supposed absurdity of the Ukrainian “regime”.