These videos were generated by artificial intelligence. No real Jewish community or organization has made any such demands.
Short videos styled as street interviews are circulating on social media. In them, men in Hasidic dress say they want to stay in Uman for good, start families and raise children there, and turn the city itself into an “independent state” or an “autonomous region” for Jews.
StopFake ran the video through HiveAI, a tool used to detect synthetic content. It put the likelihood that the video was AI-generated at 97.7%. Its timeline shows signs of generation across almost the entire 12-second clip, and for the first frame the probability reaches 99.4%. Among generator models, the tool identified Seedance 2, a text-to-video model, with 94% probability. Hive put the likelihood of a “classic” deepfake, where a real person’s face is swapped in, at 0%. In other words, this is not an edited recording of a real interview but a wholly generated scene: the “Hasid,” the “journalist” and their conversation never existed. Another service, DeepFake-O-Meter, reached the same verdict.
The “autonomy” video is only one part of a wider campaign. According to the Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), a coordinated wave of AI-generated “interviews” with supposed Hasidim spread online in September 2026. They pushed three false claims at once: that Ukraine pays every Hasidic settler 200,000 hryvnias and covers their housing; that foreign pilgrims enjoy special privileges; and that Uman should become an “independent state” or be granted “autonomy.” The CCD stressed that Ukraine has no state programs or cash payments to encourage foreigners to resettle, and that the fake videos are being seeded through a network of Russian-controlled accounts to create the illusion of a “mass” phenomenon and of foreigners’ “privileged position.”
In reality, there is no “mass resettlement.” Uman draws Hasidic pilgrims every year because it is the burial place of the tzaddik Nachman of Breslov, founder of Breslov Hasidism. Pilgrims come for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and return to their home countries once the holiday is over. In 2026 the holiday fell on Sept. 11–13, and heightened security measures were in force in Uman from Sept. 4 to 17. This wave of fakes coincided with exactly that period.
Nor do demands for Uman’s “independence” or “autonomy” have any legal basis. Under Article 2 of Ukraine’s Constitution, Ukraine is a unitary state, and its territory within its existing border is whole and inviolable. Under Article 73, any change to Ukraine’s territory can be decided only by an all-Ukrainian referendum. Ukrainian law provides no procedure for creating an “autonomous region” for any particular religious or ethnic group, and there have been no official statements or initiatives to change Uman’s status.
StopFake previously debunked a claim that a “Hasid costume” is being sold in Ukraine as a disguise to evade military enlistment offices (TCC).
