In July 2026, an image began circulating in the information space which allegedly showed a mass protest in Lviv against the activities of territorial recruitment centres. The picture showed a crowd of people with radical placards and calls for violence against representatives of the TRCs, and it was spread mainly by pro-Russian information outlets.
This photo was presented as “proof” that protests in Lviv were supposedly becoming radicalised and that society was moving towards open confrontation with the military structures. However, the event that the image was meant to confirm did not in fact take place – it was a completely fabricated picture.
The article stresses that this is not just an ordinary fake, but an attempt to create an alternative reality. Whereas previously propaganda mostly manipulated events that had actually occurred, the development of artificial intelligence technologies now makes it possible to generate “visual evidence” of things that never happened: invented crowds, non-existent radical protesters and placards with aggressive slogans.
It is emphasised separately that the choice of Lviv as the “location” is no accident. The city is one of the symbols of Ukrainian identity, the volunteer movement and support for the army, so an attempt to portray it as a hotbed of protests against the military structures has an amplified psychological effect. In this way, propagandists try to create the impression of a nationwide crisis and a “fractured society”.
The text notes that Russian propaganda exploits real sensitive issues – above all mobilisation and attitudes towards the work of state bodies – and inflates them to the scale of a “popular uprising”. Local disputes are presented as the general collapse of the state, and a single fake photo is used as supposed confirmation of a deep crisis.
The authors warn that the main goal of such information attacks is not so much to make people believe a specific fabricated story as to undermine trust: between citizens, in the military and in state institutions. The article underlines that the war is being waged not only on the battlefield, but also over society’s ability to maintain unity and a shared vision of the future.
The example of the fake photo from Lviv, according to the publication’s conclusions, illustrates the end of an era when a photograph was automatically perceived as evidence. In today’s conditions, any image needs to be verified: it is important to find out who published it, whether originals exist, whether there is video from the scene and confirmation from independent sources, as well as why it is being widely disseminated right now.
The text stresses that in an era when artificial intelligence is capable of creating convincing illusions, critical thinking becomes a component of security. After all, the real target of such fakes is not a specific body or institution, but trust itself as the foundation of a resilient society.