Anastasiia Daugule - attack 20.07.2025

On 30 July 2025, the TikTok account ukrnews_today published a reels-format video allegedly about a new petition calling for the dismissal of the “regional Territorial Recruitment Center (TRC)” in Kharkiv. The voiceover, superimposed over an image of TV presenter Anastasiia Daugule, claims that the petition is “rapidly gaining signatures” and urges viewers to follow the link in the channel’s bio and sign the so-called petition. Behind the presenter’s image, a graphic appears with the text “bloody crimes of the TRC.”

Several indicators suggest that the video is fake and created using AI tools, including the desynchronisation of the audio and video tracks. In addition, the clip provides no concrete information about the referenced petition: who authored it, when it was created, to whom it is addressed, where it is hosted, or what specific incidents involving the TRC allegedly prompted its creation. Instead, viewers are prompted only to click an anonymous link.

This case contains several indicators of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), including gendered disinformation, impersonation through the misuse of a well-known TV presenter’s likeness, manipulative tactics that undermine trust in media or an individual, and the use of AI technologies.

This is not the first instance in which Anastasiia Daugule’s likeness has been used to create similar videos on the ukrnews_today TikTok account. There are currently more than a dozen such reels on the page—most reuse the same visual clip featuring Daugule, while different audio tracks are overlaid depending on the topic of each post.