To do this, they create messages on social networks in order to fake donations supposedly to help wounded soldiers.

The fact-checkers of the project “Beyond the News” checked the message in which the user signed as “Our Victory” calls on those who are not indifferent to help his “brother” Vadym Dobrovolskyi. He is allegedly wounded and in a coma after being hit by debris in the head. The fundraising message (€12,000) was published in early August and went viral with 59,000 shares, 3,500 likes and almost 6,000 comments. However, scammers are hiding under the user who posted the message. Fact-checkers also found another, very similar message about “help” to another “wounded” person.

The message uses two archival photographs from 2015, which have nothing to do with the text of the messages. There is also a discrepancy in other reported information. The phone number +380986704972 of the “brothers” of the wounded was previously used to register a personal Facebook account, which is now blocked due to “impersonating another person and using a fictitious name.”

The phone number +380986704972 was used in another help message. Here it is listed as a phone number “for contacting the parents of the wounded soldier Yurii Sternadchuk”. The message was allegedly made on behalf of the father, Volodymyr Sternadchuk, although it was published in April by a user signed as “Glory to Ukraine”. The photo of “Yuri Sternadchuk” is a screenshot from the video in Tik-Tok on the @muzhikam channel. This user creates a video about the everyday life of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The video from which the screenshot was taken was uploaded on April 17, and the Facebook post about the injury of the so-called Yurii Sternadchuk will appear two days later. On the phone in one of the social networks, they found the real name of the author of the channel, but they did not find any connections of this person with Yurii or Volodymyr Sternadchuk.

The reports about the “wounded” soldiers Vadym and Yurii are almost identical, only the date of the “wound”, the photo and the amount of “help” differ. In the first case, 9 thousand euros were collected “for the wounded”, in the second - 12. Fraudsters see what an emotional response the stories about wounded soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine evoke and come up with stories that are similar to the truth for profit.