A video that seems to depict a New York Times Square building with an advertisement for military service in Tatarstan is being shared on Telegram. Our fact-checking department figured out if it’s real.
What happened?
On October 10, 2024, the Telegram-channel “Medved” (“Bear” in translation), which systematically spreads Russian propaganda, published news with a video showing that in America, in the center of New York, an advertisement for paid military service in Tatarstan (a republic that is a subject to Russian Federation.)
The news has also been shared in Russian social media VKontakte and Odnoklassniki (1, 2), users on YouTube and RUTUBE (1, 2), Telegram-channels “Novorossia” (“Новороссия“), “Novosti chelnov” outlet (“Новости челнов,” archive), and others.
Analysis
First, we’ve checked contact information displayed in the “advertisement,” particularly the hotline number displayed which you supposedly can call to sign up for a military service in Tatarstan.
We visited the official website created by Tatarstan authorities to recruit the men of the region.
We’ve figured out that the contact information on this website does not correspond to the contact information on the ad (the number displayed on the light box is +79655897483).
Next, we’ve checked the video used as “evidence” in the Telegram post.
Using reverse image search, we found this video on YouTube (archive) uploaded on November 17, 2022. It has the same shots with the same sequence of advertisements. But, instead of the advertisement for the military service in Tatarstan mentioned on the Telegram channel, a light box has another ad: with a logo of the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, a special economic zone within Tatarstan, and a slogan in Russian, “Пора возвращаться домой” (“It’s time to come back home.”)
On the same day, on November 17, 2022, several Russian media wrote about this ad campaign (e.g., Komsomolskaya Pravda (archive), Kommersant (archive), Realnoye vremya (archive), RIA-news (archive), TASS (archive), and others.
In their articles, Russian media refer to Alabuga’s press office that said that this ad is real and aims to recruit people from Russia who specialize in aviation, microelectronics, and IT and urge them to “return home.”
“We ask ours to come back,” said Dania Utaliyeva, a representative of Alabuga to Kommersant media.
As such, the video used by the Telegram channel’s author doesn’t actually have an ad for recruiting people into the Tatarstan military.
Conclusion: Fake
Author: Olha Yakovleva
Subscribe to news from Kharkiv, Ukraine
Most important stories from the frontline region
