Propagandists spreading pro-Russian rhetoric on social networks claim that in Ukrainian schools there is campaigning for the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi for the post of President of Ukraine. They say this is confirmed by photographs where schoolchildren write on sheets of paper “Zaluzhnyi is our president” in classrooms with similar inscriptions on the board. However, this is fake.

The StopFake project specialists conducted an investigation and found that the photographs used for the fake were taken from the pages of Ukrainian users on social networks. However, they have been edited to add the necessary false inscriptions. One of the photographs was published on the volunteer page “Olia Olkyna” a few days before propaganda began distributing fake materials. In her message, she talked about volunteer activities in one of the schools, but nowhere did she mention Zaluzhnyi or campaigning for him. The real signatures on the photo, as it turned out, were in support of Ukraine, and not the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Propagandists spread such fakes to strengthen their false message about the conflict between individual representatives of the Ukrainian government. They say that a fierce struggle for the presidency has begun in Ukraine. Detector Media has repeatedly refuted a number of other fakes and manipulations aimed at personally discrediting Valerii Zaluzhnyi.