Discrediting Ukrainian refugees, especially in countries that have provided Ukraine with humanitarian and military aid, is a common narrative for many Russian fakes. This time, pro-Russian channels shared fake news about a Ukrainian schoolgirl talking to a popular media about the “dangers” she faced in American schools.
What happened?
On January 6, pro-Russian Telegram channels Ukropskyi Fresh (archive) та Life in occupation (“Жизнь в окупации,” archive) made a post referring to, seemingly, Voice of America’s video. In the video, a schoolgirl from Ukraine who moved to the States because of Russia’s war, shared her criticism of state schools in the USA.
“Another Ukrainian refugee in the USA complained about “terrible conditions” of the learning. According to her, studying in an American school is a real test. Drugs, shootings, and (last but not least) a great number of dark-skinned Americans who the refugee calls “blacks,” in not-so-tolerant way,” the Telegram posts say.
Analysis
We analyzed the video attached to the “news.”
In the first part of the video, we see a girl who says the following: “If I would go to just regular public school, it would be much harder because, like… They’re just Americans, and their culture, the way they are thinking, it’s much more different than we Ukrainians.”
Then, we have what seems to be a girl’s voice narrating over the video fragments of different quality: “American public schools are simply dangerous. I spent half a year in a public school in New York City, and twice we had classes cancelled because of shooter threat. It was really frightening. It’s hard to get used to so many blacks, you know. Black students at public schools were very aggressive, and several times, they’ve offered me to buy crack. It’s no secret at those schools that these guys are crack dealers. I was very fortunate to have a place at Saint George’s Academy and to be able to study here. I realize that’s quite expensive, but, you know, it wouldn’t be fair if my family was made to pay for my safety. Let Americans do it.”
We noticed the emblem of the school on the girl’s uniform. The reverse search led us to the logo of a private educational facility, Saint George Academy, located in a Ukrainian village in East Village in Manhattan in New York.
The video about Ukrainian school pupils in America, in particular those who study in this academy, was really published(archive) by Voice of America (VOA) on December 20, 2024. Its title is Finding home: Ukrainian teens adjust to life in New York.
The girl in the video is Sofia. She says that the school became a second home to her and that she loves studying there because other Ukrainians study there, which makes the adaptation easier.
Sofia makes no mention of the danger of learning in American public schools, no mention of drugs, shootings, and no racist remarks.
The second part of the video was added to “expand” on Sofia’s story. That’s a common tactic Russians use for fake videos. The footage they’ve used for this part is taken from CBS New York’s video about hate speech in graffiti in the Hell’s Kitchen middle school, published on March 12, 2024.
Another video was from PBS NewsHour’s report about New York schools, published in 2011.
So, Telegram posts shared a fake video that contains a real video from Voice of America and a bunch of related to the “context” clips with the AI-generated voiceover.
This fake was aimed at discrediting Ukrainian refugees in the USA and playing into injustices that already exist in society, such as systemic racism and anti-blackness. For domestic audiences that read Telegram channels, authors mock those who are “tolerant” and those who think that people in Ukraine are tolerant and translate already offensive “blacks” to the n-word within Russian subtitles.
Conclusion: Fake
Author: Vasylyna Haviak
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