Propagandists spread information on social networks and Russian public pages that Ukrainians are ready to live even in the Chornobyl zone just to save their lives. “Enterprising Ukrainians began to make minimal repairs and sell “safe houses near Prypiat”. Among the main advantages is the absence of a shopping center. The price of pleasure is $6,500”, social network users report, distributing in their publications a video announcing the “sale of a house near Prypiat”. A male voice in the video talks about the plot and the house for sale, and on the video itself there are the inscriptions “Safe house near Prypiat”, “No shopping center”, “Renovated, clean, comfortable, stove heating”. However, this is fake.

Specialists from the StopFake project drew attention to it. They found out that in fact this announcement concerns the sale of a house in the village of Krasnianka, Vinnytsia region and has nothing to do with either the Chornobyl exclusion zone or attempts by potential buyers to avoid mobilization in Ukraine.

They found the real video, distributed on social networks and Russian media, on the Ukrainian YouTube channel “It’s easy to move to a village”. The channel was created in December 2022 and is dedicated to reviews of private houses for sale located in rural areas. The mentioned video is located in the YouTube Shorts section of the channel and has received more than 19 thousand views to date.

It is interesting that both the voice-over of the presenter, the background music, the detailed information about the property, and the photographs of the house and yard completely coincide with the fake advertisement about “selling a house near Chornobyl”. This makes it obvious that we are talking about the same ad. However, at the beginning of the original video, the presenter states that the house is located in the village of Krasnianka, Tyvrovskyi district, Vinnytsia region. In the fake publications, this information was cut out using video editing programs and, for greater reliability, text was added to the video itself, confirming that the house is located near Prypiat. There is no text in the actual ad in the video. In addition, the price of the house was changed in the fake ad. According to the authors of the fake, a plot of land near Prypiat costs $6,500, but in the original video the price is listed as $2,500. This was done, obviously, in order to show: Ukrainians are ready to give up considerable sums of money just to get away from Territorial centers of recruitment and social support.

The Chornobyl exclusion zone is located in the north of the Kyiv region. It was formed as a result of radioactive contamination of the territory after the accident at the 4th power unit of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986. Its area is 36545 hectares. Consequently, the sale of houses near Prypiat is prohibited in Ukraine, and information about this is another fake of Russian propaganda with the aim of discrediting the mobilization campaign in Ukraine. The original video was deliberately altered to create a false narrative that Ukrainians are willing to live even in the exclusion zone just to avoid Territorial centers of recruitment and social support.