Were these Ukrainians staging a fake battle scene? Nope, it’s a music video

Professional-Russian social media accounts have been greatly circulating a video clip over the past few months that exhibits a guy dressed as a Ukrainian soldier acting out a scene in front of a digicam. These accounts have claimed this movie is evidence that persons are staging scenes of the war in Ukraine. Turns out, on the other hand, the video was filmed in the course of the capturing of a new music online video by a Ukrainian artist whose tunes represents the “pain of war”.

If you only have a moment

  • Considering the fact that October 17, 2022, professional-Russian accounts on social media have been sharing two video clips that demonstrate a digicam filming a person who seems to be a Ukrainian soldier. According to these accounts, the online video is new evidence that the total war in Ukraine has been staged. 

  • Our crew spoke to the person in the online video, who is an actor. He spelled out that the sequence is essentially from the set of a music video for a tune by Ukrainian singer Anna Khanina. The actor played a Ukrainian soldier in the sequence. 

  • Khanina says this track in unique is about “the pain of this war for all Ukrainians”.

  • The actor in the video clip revealed this same video clip on YouTube. In it, he provides viewers a powering-the-scenes seem at the shoot. 

  • Professional-Russian accounts have built a pattern of saying that the war in Ukraine is getting staged. 

The truth test, in element

The two video clips show a digicam filming a gentleman donning a Ukrainian armed forces uniform, comprehensive with a Ukrainian badge, in a forest. Pro-Russian accounts on Facebook and Twitter have been circulating these video clips broadly given that October 17, 2022. They say these films offer proof that the complete war in Ukraine is just becoming staged. 

One of the sequences demonstrates the gentleman walking gradually, the cameraman in entrance of him. It was commonly shared, which include in this tweet in English, which garnered additional than 300 retweets and much more than 60,000 sights. 

“Every thing is staged in #Ukraine. Anything is bogus, their promises are pretend, faux narratives and many others”, reads the caption on the tweet. 

The next picture exhibits the identical actor. This time, nevertheless, he is on his knees and holds his head in his hands, just in entrance of the digital camera. 

“Ukrainian reservist executing some sort of acting for the digital camera?” reads a tweet showcasing this online video that garnered nearly 137,000 views and was shared much more than 2,500 periods.

“Plainly, the next phony news item is previously currently being filmed. The title should really be ‘psychological weapons/ Russian sonic weapons’”, reads this tweet in German, which was shared much more than 700 moments.

Screengrabs showing tweets from October 18 (left) and October 17 (right), which use these videos to show that the war in Ukraine has been staged.
Screengrabs exhibiting tweets from October 18 (remaining) and October 17 (correct), which use these films to demonstrate that the war in Ukraine has been staged. Observers

However, if these videos do indeed demonstrate a set, the intention of the filming was not to generate visuals pretending to document the war in Ukraine.

There are a couple clues in the video clip that can aid us detect the context it was filmed in. Initial, there’s a TikTok logo on the display screen as nicely as a username, “@user4775478401030”.

If you type this username in the look for bar on TikTok, then you’ll uncover an account that involves many video clips, together with a couple revealed more than the past couple days (below and right here).

Beneath one particular of these videos, one commenter explains, in Ukrainian, that the sequence shows “Petr Pavlovitch Sherekin – an actor and proprietor of a chain of hair salons […] and pretty much a prototype of a online video sport character.”  

This is how we found the origin of the video and the name of the actor who features in it.
This is how we found the origin of the video clip and the name of the actor who attributes in it. Observers

If you form in the actor’s title, penned in Ukrainian, into a look for engine (“Петро Павлович Шерекин”) then you are going to pull up several Russian cinema websites that point out him.

Filming a songs video

You can also uncover the actor’s YouTube channel, which capabilities a video clip that has a great deal of similarities with the movies that have been circulating on line in the latest times. This online video, revealed on Oct 14, is identified as “As filmed in the new music movie of singer Anna Khanina”. The video’s description specifies this video clip is “behind-the-scenes – a appear at the shooting process”.

In the video, Petr Sherekin wears the exact armed forces uniform and hat and carries the similar weapons as in the movies shared more than the past couple of days. The camera and the jacket worn by the cameraman also search comparable. You can also see the identical row of pine trees in the qualifications of both equally of these films, which will make it look quite possible that the video clips circulated by professional-Russian accounts were in fact filmed all through the shooting of this same songs movie. 

Here, you can see a comparison between the video that has been circulating online over the past few days (centre) and the video giving a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of a music video published by Petr Sherekin.
Below, you can see a comparison among the online video that has been circulating online about the past couple times (centre) and the online video providing a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of a new music movie revealed by Petr Sherekin. Observers

Here, you can see a comparison between the video that has been circulating online over the past few days (left) and the video giving a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of a music video published by Petr Sherekin.
Listed here, you can see a comparison in between the movie that has been circulating online more than the earlier several days (remaining) and the video clip offering a at the rear of-the-scenes look at the filming of a tunes video released by Petr Sherekin. Observers

Our crew arrived at out to actor Petr Sherekin, who explained to us far more about the story behind these movies:

This video displays the filming of a audio movie by the exceptional Ukrainian singer Anna Khanina. The tune is identified as “Lullaby”. It’s a tune about the war taking place appropriate now in Ukraine. In this movie, I perform the purpose of a warrior who crosses war-torn Ukraine in the hopes of finding his spouse and son and attaining victory.

Our group also reached out to Anna Khanina who also mentioned that these video clips ended up from the filming of the new music video for the song “Lullaby” (“Колыбельная” in Russian), which was released on October 6. The music video clip is even now in generation, she explained. 

And it is no incident that the video characteristics a Ukrainian soldier:

The music talks about the suffering of the war for all Ukrainians, how women and young children need to facial area starvation and chilly while waiting impatiently for the return of their husbands, brothers and fathers soon after the war. The song talks about the hope for victory and perception in their long term.

Like numerous Ukrainian women of all ages, Anna Khanina lived by means of bombing and the horror of possessing her spouse go to war. This music is shaped by her own expertise. 

My husband wrote the words. This music and the video that goes together with it stand for the fact. It shows what we are defending, what we are keeping on to. It is like the discussions I have at night time with my son. The female is comforting him even though also comforting herself. She believes deeply that everything will be alright.

It is this suffering of war that actor Petr Sherekin is expressing in the movie that has started off circulating over the earlier couple days. In it, he can be seen on his knees, crying. He told the FRANCE 24 Observers: 

In this tunes online video, there are a number of chapters: chapters of struggle, of rest, of grief. In the clip in problem, the guy is standing there and has a significant agony in his head since of an injuries.

The director explained to me: “I want you to show this soreness, and it’s not just the agony of an harm. Show me the suffering of war, the grief of war, the horror of war. Present all that in this scream. All that has to be shown by what you are screaming.”

The actor claimed that he was really stunned by the way this articles has circulated in new days:

When I woke up this early morning, a lot of information organisations started out calling me and asking for my reaction. When I noticed the clip, which just lasted a couple of seconds, on TikTok, it now had 2.5 million views. People today started out calling me and telling me that the video clip was being circulated as ‘fake news’. 

But I promise that they will not conquer us Ukrainians with their ‘fake news’, nor with their bombing. The moment a rocket exploded and broke our windows but it did not scare us. You know why? Simply because we are Ukranians. Glory to Ukraine!

Considering the fact that the very commence of the war, pro-Russian accounts have been sharing video clips to assistance the principle that the complete war in Ukraine has been staged. Not long ago, for instance, social media users accused the media of applying a staged video of wounded persons, even however the scene really took location. Professional-Russian accounts have also fixated on a photo by British journalist Jeremy Bowen, falsely declaring that he was only pretending to be on the front traces.

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