Beware of this photo of Ukrainian children in front of tanks, it dates from 2016

• On social networks, many Internet users support Ukraine by relaying a photograph of two children saluting tanks going to the front.

• Serving to expose the horror of the current war, the photograph was actually taken in 2016.

• This is an "artistic" shot and not a documentary photo, underlines the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, many netizens have shared their support for the Ukrainian people.

A photograph is making a viral comeback on social networks to underline the country's "patriotism".

We see two children holding hands, while saluting tanks displaying a Ukrainian flag and "heading for the front", writes in particular the Twitter account @Almasantta.

The illustration is striking because we see the opposition between the innocence of childhood and the violence of war.

More significantly still, the little boy is holding a plastic weapon behind his back.

The message is quite clear: he too will join the troops of soldiers one day.

Two Ukrainian kids seen paying their respect to Ukraine troops heading to the war front.

True patriotism Ukraine🇺🇦👊🏾#Ukraine #Russia #Putin #Nato #Kyiv 💛💛💛 pic.twitter.com/FKkjV8bgy2

— Holy_Soul😇 (@ALMASANTTA) February 26, 2022

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The photo also has a strong presence on Facebook, with a post accompanied by the following caption: “Two young Ukrainian children send soldiers to fight the Russians.

The children holding hands, the girl holding a stuffed animal, the boy (his brother?) greets.

Look what he has on his back.

This picture says a thousand words”.

But was this photograph taken during the recent news in Ukraine? 

returns to the facts.

FAKE OFF

By using the reverse image search tool, we found several articles that already used the same photograph in 2017. She notably illustrated articles from the Moldovan media

or a local media from the Ukrainian city of Zhitomir.

We can thus deduce that this photograph was not taken during the current war in Ukraine.

It remains to be seen in what context these children could have been in front of the Ukrainian tanks.

During our online research, we came across this article from the Dominican newspaper

, dated February 25, 2022. The photo is captioned as follows: “Photo distributed by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense showing two children saluting a convoy of soldiers and tanks of the Ukrainian army.

»

The author, a ministry volunteer

The author of the photograph is Dmitry Muravsky.

In 2016, he was indeed working as a volunteer photographer for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

We found a ministry publication dated March 22, 2016, which relays the "incredible photos from Dmitry Muravsky's 'Children of war' album".

The photograph appears in the album of the same name on the personal profile of its author.

But since then, the photographer has been relieved of his duties, reports the

After several accusations of staging a photograph of soldiers, the ministry took the decision to "remove the voluntary adviser from his duties", specified the press release published on August 28, 2016.

“The Ministry of Defense recognizes the work of Dmitry Muravsky.

We received many of his high-quality, artistically designed photos that were never considered by the ministry to be documentary photos or real war photos,” the statement said, before specifying that his “photo gallery has been used to promote service in the armed forces and not to show real war fighting”.

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