A video circulating online under the Deutsche Welle logo that purports to report “thousands of injured” during detentions by Ukraine’s Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centers is fabricated. The clip has no connection to any authentic Deutsche Welle reporting and instead repurposes genuine footage, stripping it of context and overlaying it with invented statistics designed to undermine confidence in Ukraine’s mobilization system and inflame public anxiety.
A video circulating online under the Deutsche Welle logo claims that employees of Ukraine’s Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centers (TCCs) severely injured a man during a detention.
“He is just one of thousands who lose their health after encounters with the TCC,” the post claims, adding that in November and December 2025 alone more than 5,000 Ukrainians were allegedly injured during TCC detentions and suggesting that others could have been killed or sent to the front as “cannon fodder.”
The video is a fabrication. Deutsche Welle has never published such a report, either on its official website or across its social media platforms, and the broadcaster’s archives contain no materials making comparable claims.
Using Google reverse image searches, StopFake journalists traced the footage used in the fake video to a legitimate Deutsche Welle report. The original segment profiles Artem Korchak, a 38-year-old Ukrainian veteran who sustained severe injuries during Russia’s war of aggression. Korchak suffered a serious facial wound in 2023 while fighting near Kupiansk. Deutsche Welle’s report examines the medical and social consequences of his injury and highlights the work of the humanitarian initiative Face to Face, through which doctors carry out complex reconstructive surgeries to help wounded veterans regain facial function and appearance.
The fabricated clip also splices in unrelated video and photographic materials that appear to show routine document checks conducted by TCC and SP personnel. Over these images, a voice-over—likely generated using artificial intelligence—asserts that more than 5,000 Ukrainians were injured during TCC detentions in November–December 2025, a claim for which no evidence is provided.
The fake video merely mimics Deutsche Welle’s style. In contrast, genuine content from the German government-funded outlet follows a clear structure: each report opens with the location and date of the event, and all footage is properly attributed to primary sources. None of these elements appear in the circulated clip.
According to the Osavul monitoring platform, the video first appeared on January 7 on the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Respublika Odessa.
The claim that “more than 5,000 Ukrainians” were injured during TCC detentions in November–December 2025 is unsubstantiated. Open-source verification yields no evidence for such a figure. Official records paint a markedly different picture: in response to a request from Ukrainska Pravda, the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights reported that from January to October 2025, Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets received roughly 5,000 complaints concerning possible rights violations by TCC and SP personnel during mobilization. This total encompasses all types of complaints, not solely instances of physical harm. By comparison, the office logged more than 3,400 complaints in 2024, over 500 in 2023, and just 18 in 2022.
The circulation of these falsified videos forms part of a broader, ongoing disinformation campaign designed to undermine confidence in Ukraine’s mobilization efforts. By inflating risks and portraying state authorities as systematically violating citizens’ rights, propagandists aim to stoke fear and erode public trust. The deliberate use of recognizable Western media logos and fabricated statistics is intended to lend these narratives a veneer of credibility while maximizing their emotional impact.
StopFake previously examined a similar narrative in its article, Video Fake: TCC Forcibly Mobilises a Woman Doctor in Kharkiv.
