A report that the Belgorod military enlistment office was recruiting schoolchildren as “junior staff” over the summer was a fake, according to Provereno, a fact-checking website.
Provereno’s editors found no mention of any such recruitment drive on official regional sources or in the local media.
The outlet also ran a photograph featured in the announcement through the Hive AI content detector, which assessed a 92% probability the image was AI-generated. The photograph carried a SynthID digital watermark, indicating it was “very likely” generated by Google’s AI.
Provereno also found that a similar announcement in Ukrainian had appeared online a week earlier, claiming that Ukraine’s National Police was inviting schoolchildren to work part-time at the Cherkasy territorial recruitment center. Like the Belgorod version, it opened with the line: “Love sports? Looking for a summer job?” After the announcement circulated widely, the Cherkasy regional police issued a denial.
Idite Lesom (“Get Lost”), the human rights project that first published the photograph purportedly showing the Belgorod military enlistment office recruiting schoolchildren, said the image had been submitted through a Telegram feedback bot.
The original report, which appeared in Idite Lesom on the evening of June 5, claimed the Belgorod military enlistment office was recruiting students ages 15 to 17 for summer jobs as “junior employees” and “military records specialists.” Several major outlets republished it, including Meduza. We apologize to readers for publishing the unverified announcement.
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