Illustration: Truthmeter.mk
This article was first published by Truthmeter.mk (North Macedonia), within the framework of Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Project.
Claims of mass surrenders of Ukrainian soldiers are being circulated by Russian sources and media outlets, but they lack independent verification or clear photo or video evidence. There is no publicly available data indicating that “several hundred” or a “large battalion” of Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered
We analyze a post on the social network Facebook which says:
The Ukrainian army begins to surrender en masse.
The post also shares a video that allegedly shows Ukrainian soldiers surrendering, with some of them crying.
The video can immediately be identified as having been created with the help of artificial intelligence, because it bears the signature, or rather the watermark, of Sora, an AI video-generation tool.
The video was taken from a TikTok profile that shares multiple videos of alleged Ukrainian soldiers, which were also created with the help of Sora.
From this, it becomes clear that the video is not real and does not serve as evidence of any mass surrender of Ukrainian soldiers.
This claim is not supported by any other evidence or by reports from any reputable international media outlet.
Russian President Vladimir Putin claims Russian forces have surrounded Ukrainian soldiers in the towns of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk,, and are seeking an agreement for their surrender.
The Russian Defense Ministry claims that “encircled” Ukrainian units did not want to surrender.
Ukrainian officials deny that there is a siege in Kupinask and say the situation is difficult but under control.
Several analytical reports say that some Russian units are surrendering or fleeing due to poor organization—but this refers to Russian, not Ukrainian, forces.
Claims of mass surrenders of Ukrainian soldiers are being circulated by Russian sources and media outlets, but they lack independent verification or clear photo or video evidence. There is no publicly available data indicating that “several hundred” or a “large battalion” of Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered.
Ukrainian authorities have not announced that such a mass surrender has occurred.
Sources with similar themes (mass surrender of soldiers) increasingly originate from the Russian side, or refer to alleged Russian defeats/surrenders.
Due to the aforementioned, we can conclude that the post we are analyzing is untrue.
