By New York Post (World News) | Created at 2026-10-03 19:20:42 | Updated at 2026-10-03 19:59:51
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Russia is waging a disinformation campaign claiming Ukrainian women are being forcibly drafted into the armed forces — in what Kyiv is calling an attempt to sow panic and undermine voluntary military recruitment as the Kremlin’s position weakens on the battlefield.
Earlier this week, Russian Telegram channels began circulating an AI-generated image showing a woman with an assault rifle and a baby, and the caption “a real Ukrainian woman does these things in 40 seconds.”
The image purported to be a recruitment ad for military service for women by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in a shopping mall in Kyiv.
But the image is fake, and Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation says women are not subject to compulsory mobilization and that there are no current plans to introduce it. Women can join the country’s Defense Forces voluntarily.
“Social advertising in a Kyiv shopping center next to a cosmetics store,” wrote Russian television presenter Olesya Loseva, one of the people who widely circulated the photo, on Telegram on Tuesday.
“Swaddling a child and assembling a machine gun is the same thing, according to the Ukrainian authorities,” she blasted.
Other supposed mobilization ads featured women in military uniforms with the slogan, “now it’s your turn, show your superpower.”
In a warning, the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation called the fake ads an “informational provocation” — as no forced mobilization of women is taking place or planned.
Ukrainian fact-checkers also reported that the woman-and-baby image showed signs of AI generation, with Hive Moderation estimating a 99% likelihood that it was AI-generated.
“The enemy’s goal is to artificially create a sense of the ‘inevitability of forced mobilization of women,’ sow anxiety and discredit voluntary recruitment into the Defense Forces,” said the government agency.
“The primary source of the spread of these fakes is a network of Russian Telegram channels, which systematically produces and spreads AI fakes to destabilize the situation in Ukraine.”
Russian media and disinformation Telegram channels also circulated images of supposed “draft notices,” claiming women in Kyiv and Kharkiv had received them.
It’s not the first time Russia has used doctored photos to spread false claims since the start of the war nearly five years ago.
Russian disinformation outlets have previously circulated forged screenshots of news headlines purportedly from the BBC, The Guardian, The Independent and Al Jazeera.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov even claimed during a Sept. 15, embassy roundtable in Moscow that he has “no doubt” Ukraine would resort to forcibly mobilizing women due to ongoing military manpower shortages — even though it’s Russia that’s by far suffered the most significant casualties on the battlefield.
