‘Betrayal spreads like wildfire’: Inside the disinformation battle for Ukraine on TikTok

ITV News Reporter George Hancorn and Deputy Content Editor Lottie Kilraine report

ITV News has uncovered a series of videos, repeatedly served to young Ukrainians on TikTok, urging them not to fight in the war against Russia, and even sharing tips and links on how to flee the country to avoid conscription.

Before the war, 'Hacker' worked as a video producer and was a singer/songwriter, but now he is serving on the frontline in eastern Ukraine as a reconnaissance drone operator.

At 33, Hacker is one of the millions of Ukrainian men who have been conscripted, which means by law he had to join the army and fight for his country, unless he has a valid reason not to.

He spoke to us via video call from his unit's military base in the eastern Ukraine. We had to reschedule our interview three times because he was repeatedly called out to the combat zone.

"In the information war in the east, we’re losing the fight. It’s absolutely clear," Hacker told us.

"I deleted TikTok six months ago because I was just tired of the content. In the unit where I served, unfortunately, many people watch these videos and repost them with comments like, ‘we’re all doomed’ or ‘it’s all betrayal’.

"This feeling of betrayal spreads like wildfire, damaging the morale of the entire army.

“The Russians use this. They’re running psychological operations (psych-ops) to amplify the dissatisfaction in our society and lower our morale.”

Hacker is one of the millions of Ukrainian men who have been conscripted, which means by law he had to join the army and fight for his country

Working with a Ukrainian journalist and using a Ukrainian sim card, we tested TikTok’s algorithm to see the sort of content users are being offered on the app.

In just hours, the feed was full of videos showing anti-conscription messaging, fearmongering, anti-western narratives, and even tips and advice of how to "dodge the draft", known as Ухилянт.

Ukraine lowered its draft-eligible age for men from 27 to 25 in April, reflecting the strain that nearly three years of Russian bombardment has put on its military.

The accounts we found, many of which posed as Ukrainian civilians, promoted guidance on fleeing the country, sometimes in exchange for huge cash sums, while others claimed they had evidence the conscription age will be lowered again or could soon include women.

ITV News verified the findings of our investigation with conflict, cybersecurity and disinformation experts.

Key findings from ITV News' investigation

General trends across the accounts we examined include a strong focus on discrediting Ukrainian government officials, with a major emphasis placed on narratives related to:

• anti-conscription messaging

• fearmongering

• discrediting Ukraine's President Zelenskyy and his war cabinet

• corruption

• anti-western narratives

• attempts to undermine international support

Some of the TikTok accounts we found pushed deliberate pro-Kremlin narratives, while others played on Ukrainians emotions showing videos of fallen soldiers or fighters being subjected to cruelty.

“TikTok was steering me towards content I wasn’t even interested in, due to its algorithm," Hacker said. "Even if I consciously tried to avoid it, the psych-ops content would still show up.

“[Examples of the videos] could be someone who’s never even been to the frontline, filming in a fake field or during training, but passing it off as actual war footage. They take audio from some other video, and suddenly you have millions of misleading, meaningless images.”

Last month, Ukraine's Centre for Countering Disinformation (CCD), part of the country's National Security and Defence Council, branded TikTok a more dangerous platform for spreading Russian disinformation and propaganda than Telegram, describing it as a "significant concern".

We showed the findings of our investigation to Anayit Khoperiya, who is the deputy head of the CCD.

"Russia is creating these videos which appear on TikTok, and at the same time on Telegram, to create the impression that Ukraine's mobilisation is chaotic and without clear rules," she told us.

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Conscription is a sensitive topic among Ukrainians, who are bracing for their third winter of conflict, amid growing shortages of infantry, ammunition and morale, meaning emotions tend to be easily manipulated.

In recent weeks, footage has been widely shared on online appearing to show army recruiters dragging young men out of restaurants and bars in an alleged bid to restore its depleted ranks with new conscripts. ITV News was unable to independently verify the footage.

Other unverified reports claim Ukraine is so short of fighters that soldiers from other countries, including the UK, are "on standby" to help them train up or even step up.

Meanwhile, Russia is recruiting men, sometimes without choice, from countries around the world, including conscripts drafted in from North Korea, according to defense officials.

Oleksandr Danylyuk, is a former Ukrainian politician and military serviceman who now works for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a defence and security think tank based in the UK.

He told us: "To some extent, what Russia is doing right now against conscription and mobilisation is opportunistic because of some strategic mistakes of the Ukrainian government and its armed forces.

"You can obviously reduce the popularity of being recruited to the Ukrainian armed forces, and it's very smart."

Oleksandr Danylyuk who works for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) described Russia's online disinformation campaign as 'opportunistic'

Ukraine and Russia have very different techniques when it comes to conscription, with Russia offering shorter six month contacts and even cash sums to encourage men to join their military.

"This is actually one of the ways they keep people motivated," Mr Danylyuk said.

"They just invite conscripts and they offer them either to be mobilised, which means you will be in armed forces until the end of the war, or you can sign that short term contract. And if you sign a one year contract or longer you would be also be awarded with a significant sum of money."

There are currently 16 million TikTok users in Ukraine, but almost 60 million (58.9m) in Russia, according to the Demand Sage analytics.

This year has seen a sharp rise in Russian state-affiliated accounts posting more frequently on TikTok.

For example, in 2023 Russian accounts published two to three posts per day, and this number has doubled around four or five posts per day since the beginning of this year.

Some accounts began posting around late 2023 and early 2024, while others have ramped up their anti-Ukraine content since August.

Social media has become one of Russia's most powerful tools, as George Hancorn and Lottie Kilraine explain on ITV News' What You Need To Know podcast

Engagement - which includes likes, comments, and reposts - on TikTok accounts linked to the Russian-state and President Vladimir Putin is now higher than on X and Telegram, according to ByteDance and the Centre for Disinformation.

TikTok revealed in its August transparency report that the platform has already dismantled 19,727 accounts which they found to be operating from Russia to "undermine the Ukrainian Territorial Recruitment".

However, this has been described as "incredibly challenging" by one disinformation expert.

Valeria Kovtun, who is a disinformation specialist based in Kyiv and London, said: "We've seen videos that were blatantly misleading gain millions of views.

"Even when numerous users flagged them as misinformation, TikTok was slow to take them down. By the time they did, the damage had often already been done. And with how quickly new accounts or misleading content can pop up, the cycle just repeats itself," she added.

Responding to our investigation, a spokesperson for TikTok said: "We've taken aggressive action to combat misinformation related to the war in Ukraine by proactively removing content and accounts that violate our policies and transparently reporting on the covert influence operations that we have eliminated.

"We've also launched media literacy campaigns across Europe with our fact-checking partners to help equip people with skills to evaluate content online and build resilience against misinformation."

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