PHOTOFAKE: In the 225th Separate Assault Regiment, ethnic Romanians are deliberately sent on deadly missions

Russians are spreading screenshots of three articles allegedly about the deaths of ethnic Romanians who served in the 225th Separate Assault Regiment. They claim that the unit’s command “hates everyone who is not ethnically Ukrainian” and deliberately sends them on deadly missions.

However, this is a photo fake. The headlines of all three articles were edited. Only one publication actually concerned the death of a serviceman from Bukovyna, but he did not serve in the 225th Separate Assault Regiment. The others describe the military service experience of another man from Bukovyna and the results of a sociological study in the region.

Using keywords, we found the materials to which the propagandists refer. However, none of them mentions the deaths of ethnic Romanians who served in the 225th Separate Assault Regiment.

In the article by the media outlet “Molodyi Bukovynets” dated October 21, 2025, they actually reported on the farewell to serviceman Yevhenii Zhavoronkov from the 82nd Air Assault Brigade. The man did not serve in the 225th Separate Assault Regiment, and the name “Mircea Andreiescu” was invented.

In the article by the Romanian-language Ukrainian outlet “BucPress” dated October 22, 2025, which allegedly reported the death of a serviceman “as a result of forced mobilization,” they actually describe the military service experience of a man from Bukovyna, Yurii Chubrei. The man is alive, and information about his death is also fabricated.

Another “BucPress” article, which allegedly refers to the death of a serviceman from Vyzhnytsia (Chernivtsi Oblast), does not concern a specific person at all. In fact, it describes the results of the research project “Social Barometer — 2025. Romanians in Ukraine in the fourth year of the war.”

In all three cases, the propagandists most likely changed the news headlines using a photo editor or by editing the page code.

Earlier, we had already debunked a fake claiming that patrol officers in Sumy discovered a forged driver’s license belonging to a serviceman of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade.