FAKE: Ukrainian medals “For capture of Crimea” found in military recruitment offices in Kherson region

A photo allegedly depicting Ukrainian medals “For the Capture of Crimea”, which were allegedly found in the military recruitment offices of the Kherson region, is spreading on the Internet. The certificate, issued by “order of the President of Ukraine,” states the initials “V. A. Zelensky”. The phrase “For the capture of Crimea” is written on the box with the medal.

However, those medals are fake, in fact they do not exist.

Several factors indicate that those medals and certificates are fake:

1. Incorrect spelling of the initials of Ukraine’s President. The initials are written as “V. A. Zelensky” in the forged certificate. V.A. is an abbreviation of the name and patronymic “Vladimir Alexandrovich” in Russian. The correct version of the initials in Ukrainian is “V. O.”, i.e. Volodymyr Oleksandrovych. They were likely tried to be translated through an automatic translator that does not change the initials or abbreviations.

2. About the expression “For the capture of Crimea”. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is a temporarily occupied territory, not actually the territory of the Russian Federation. Medals with a similar name (for example, “For the capture of Berlin”, “For the capture of Vienna”) were awarded in the USSR.

3. The absence of the President’s signature before his initials. For example, in the certificate to the Order of the Golden Star, which is awarded together with the title of Hero of Ukraine, his signature is next to the initials of the President. The President’s signature is also on the certificate to the medal to “the Defender of the Fatherland”.

4. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine awards not by “order” but by “decree”. For example, according to the Decree of the President of Ukraine № 157 (2022), “On the awarding with state awards”, certain persons were awarded with the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky I, III, and III degrees for personal courage and selfless actions in defense of state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, loyalty to the military oath.”

5. Another factor is that the certificate is printed on a black and white printer. Original documents of this kind have the form of a hardcover book with the number of the presidential decree and a seal.