People online spread messages about President Zelenskyy signing in the law to provide financial aid to all citizens who hadn’t left Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion. We figured out if there’s any truth to that  

What happened? 

Users of our fact-check bot PEREVIRKA sent out requests to check a TikTok account “ДЕРЖАВНА ДОПОМОГА” [“State-provided aid” from Ukrainian — ed.] The account posted a video address of President Zelenskyy, where he talks about signing the law №4772.

This law reportedly determines a financial aid of 16,000 hryvnias to be given to Ukrainians who haven’t left Ukraine since February 24, 2022. 

In the video, Volodymyr Zelenskyy notes that any family member can apply for this financial support for the family. For that, they would need to follow the link in the profile of the account, “ДЕРЖАВНА ДОПОМОГА.” 

Analysis

Law №4772

To begin with, we’ve checked the information about the law №4772, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy “refers to” in the video. 

As such, we found out that the law under this number was signed by Zelenskyy on February 9, 2017. The law introduces changes to some legislations in Ukraine and contains regulations for the voluntary uniting of territorial communities. No mention of any financial aid to Ukrainians. 

Zelenskyy’s “address”

We also checked the video with President Zelenskyy, published on TikTok. We’ve figured out that the footage for it was taken from Zelenskyy’s address on March 11, 2022. In the video, the President urges all Ukrainians to unite to win the war with Russia and makes no mention of law №4772. 

Link in a TikTok profile 

Apart from that, we’ve checked the link in the bio of an account “ДЕРЖАВНА ДОПОМОГА.” 

It leads the user to the Telegram channel “Всевидящее ОКО” [“All seeing eye” from Ukrainian — ed.], which is not the official platform of the Ukrainian government and does not — cannot — accept citizens’ applications for financial aid. 

This TikTok account has a string of similar videos urging users to click the link in the profile. Some of the videos leading to a link have gotten up to a million views. 

So, TikTok accounts “ДЕРЖАВНА ДОПОМОГА” deliberately created a fake video of President Zelenskyy via deepfake technology to acquire an audience on the Telegram channel “All-seeing eye.” 

We’re dealing with clickbait — a lure that urges people to do a certain action: join the channel, download an app, and so on. 

Conclusions: Fake, clickbait

Nazar Hlamazda worked on this debunking piece, and Yana Sliemzina translated and adapted his text for English-speaking audiences. Support our fact-checking efforts on Patreon, BMC, or Paypal, and join us in the fight against fake news and Russian propaganda. 

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