An abhorrent amount of people believe this video is real. I found it on a Twitter account with more than 360k views at the time of writing this. It purports to show a Ukrainian being hit and slowly passing. It is almost undoubtedly fake. This writeup isn't WHY I think it's fake, it's a little about "WHY" it would be faked in the first place.

The "Rudenko" source is one that I've seen on countless other questionable videos, all of which play on a predisposition or a bias (there was even an organ-harvesting one). I try to find a desired end-state for each video I watch, almost as a means to weed out potentially fake or staged videos. Evaluating this video's goal is quite simple: Perpetuating or exacerbating the idea that Ukraine is losing and suffering (it has a basis of truth; it's War and there's always suffering), which would as an overall desired end-state lead to diminished western popular support to Ukraine and capitulation down the road from Kyiv. I don't personally believe that Kyiv can withstand Russia's invasion without it. Arguments for 'peace' would follow almost as a measure of effectiveness, though those calls for peace would have an underlying tone of capitulation because clearly, as the video shows, Ukrainians are suffering (again, there is truth to that, but keep yourself in the context of this video). The video itself emanates a futility of Ukraine fighting back. "See how Ukrainians are dying?". A Measure of performance? 360k views and growing.

As I've mentioned before, both Russia and Ukraine are actively using the information space very well. They're both adapting to new means of dissemination and reaching an even-broader target audience that previously was only reachable via Strategic or even National-level operations. As it stands NOW, a squad can film a staged or fake video like this, upload it to their Telegram, and it's off to the races on Social Media. Twitter (X, whatever) is an easy means of dissemination, if not even by direct Russian sources, by propagation and widespread acceptance of "OSINT" pages. I have a love/hate relationship with OSINT pages and OSINT-ers in general. Some provide an EXCELLENT means of deriving deeper information that's available publicly, while others are just a regurgitation of secondary sources. Sometimes that's all you have, though. Love/Hate. The Funker team and I are archivists of footage, and field a similar role. Love it/Hate it.

Russia's prowess in Information Warfare can't be understated; In-fact, we studied Russia's purposeful free-use (free meaning not impeded by red tape and policy) of social media in support of a desired end-state, and from a certain perspective it's quite a bit better than its given credit. They know how to shape their messaging to tug on predispositions and fence-sitters; Those that follow the Ukraine war via headlines and talking heads, most of-whom are presenting information supporting an agenda of some kind. Ukraine has done the same, and in the instance of Russia's invasion, was faster to the information warfare game than Russia. Russia took phones from its soldiers and Ukrainian citizens in the areas they drove into, kept information from flowing since early-on in the war. It's only relatively recent that we see on-ground direct action from a Russian-filmed perspective that wasn't edited and published by State-media.

With the sheer amount of footage that we have, and in an attempt to answer the overly-common question of "why" would anyone stage or fake this:

It will hide amongst the rest of the very real footage of War, adding to real suffering that's happening. It will propagate on "X" as a reality, until as an eventuality make its way to the water cooler at the office job, where Jim will tell his buddy Randy that he's seeing too much Ukrainian suffering and that the war needs to end (basis of truth). Ukraine should just give up.

If you guys find things out in the wild that you think are relevant for archival here, tag us on socials; I'm @RonnieAdkins_ on Instagram and Twitter.

About the Author

Ronnie Adkins

Ronnie is a US Army Intelligence and Information Operations veteran. He deployed twice to Afghanistan, first as a driver, and second with the 75th Ranger Regiment as an Information Operations Chief. Ronnie is a full-time content creator on the Funker530 platform, as well as his own YouTube channel. Follow Ronnie's work at RonnieAdkins.com