Servicewomen of the “Fighting Witches” mobile group of Ukraine’s Air Defense Forces practice shooting at a base in Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine, on Nov. 2, 2024. (Yevhenii Vasyliev/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
Russian disinformation yet again targets the sensitive topic of mobilization in Ukraine — this time, pushing falsehoods about an alleged forced draft of women.
Pro-Kremlin social media accounts and Russian media have spread AI-generated images alleging that Ukrainian women are being lured to join the Armed Forces by targeted recruitment posters, while others claim they are being outright called up for military service.
But though tens of thousands of Ukrainian women enlisted in the army as volunteers, these claims are false — there is no mandatory draft of women in place, nor is it being prepared.
Telegram channels have once again proven to be fertile ground for such fabricated stories, with both Ukrainian- and Russian-language channels involved in spreading them.
One fake post from Sept. 15 alleged that posters featuring women in military uniforms had appeared around Odesa, a city in southern Ukraine. Other channels reposted identical photographs but claimed they had been seen around Lutsk, in western Ukraine.
The banners' message was intended to show how domestic chores hardly differ from tasks at the front, reading, "You figured out the washing machine — you'll figure out FPVs (first-person-view drones) too."
"There were no such banners, and an AI verification tool indicates they were AI-generated," Roman Osadchuk, the director of Threat Intelligence at the LetsData tech company, told the Kyiv Independent.
LetsData spotted the campaign in mid-September as it began circulating on social media.
A similar fake image was posted on the Telegram channel of Russian state TV presenter Olesya Loseva on Sept. 29. The post featured a bogus advertisement she claimed had been displayed in one of Kyiv's shopping centers.
The image features a young woman standing over a baby and a gun, with the Ukrainian-language caption reading: "A real Ukrainian woman can do these things in 40 seconds!"
When the Kyiv Independent ran this image through Hive Moderation, a platform that detects AI-generated or synthetic content, it returned a near-certain verdict — 99.9% likely to be AI-generated.
"This narrative is recurring and gets amplified from time to time, meaning that it comes and goes, sometimes using 'new tools' like AI-generated imagery," adds Osadchuk.
While disinformation and propaganda have long been central to Moscow's arsenal, Russia is now harnessing AI to spread falsehoods faster and more widely.
"Russia-linked actors have mostly used AI tools to amplify existing tactics, such as producing inauthentic content at scale and spreading content to reach broader audiences and fuel polarization," the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats reported in March.
Besides Telegram, the narrative has also appeared on X, where a post by Donbass Segodnya, a pro-Russian news outlet, featured images of a woman apparently holding summons papers, implying that a mass call-up of women has begun.
Women can indeed receive summonses, but only if they are in the military register, which is mandatory only for women with relevant medical or pharmaceutical education.
Even then, this does not mean they can be mobilized against their will. The women are simply added to the register and can be summoned to update their personal data or undergo a medical examination.
No mobilization of women in Ukraine
Since 2022, Ukraine has been carrying out a large-scale draft of military-age men to boost its army's ranks and resist Russian aggression — a topic repeatedly targeted by Russian disinformation and propaganda.
Women have also joined the military as volunteers, with about 76,000 being part of Ukraine's Armed Forces, including 57,000 serving in military roles. However, Ukraine has not instituted a mandatory draft for women.
"There are no decisions to mobilize women in Ukraine," said Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, a body at the country's National Security and Defense Council, on Aug. 26.
"The parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence officially stated that there are no legislative initiatives, draft laws, or internal discussions concerning the introduction of such mobilization.
Moscow launched this latest disinformation campaign just as rumors of women's conscription circulated in Ukraine.
Former Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov raised the issue in an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on Aug. 20, arguing that requiring women to serve in the military would "immediately double the mobilization pool."
Separately, former U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg said on Aug. 24 that he believed women should be mobilized to help Ukraine's manpower problem since "they (women) fight no worse than men."
The Ukrainian parliament reacted by saying that the comments "do not reflect the actual legislative work."
With no draft law on the table, the mobilization of women remains confined to AI-generated content.
This article was produced as part of the F.A.C.T. (Fighting Against Conspiracy and Trolls) project, funded by the European Union through HaDEA. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of HaDEA or the European Union. Neither HaDEA nor the EU is responsible for any use of the information contained herein.
