Yuliya Mostova - attack 22.06.2025

In June–July 2025, the Telegram channel “Dzhoker” published two manipulative posts aimed at discrediting Yuliya Mostova, Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Mirror Weekly).

On June 22, 2025, a post featured an AI-generated collage portraying a woman resembling Mostova and a man resembling her husband, Anatoliy Hrytsenko. They are shown holding a toy tank and a “FOR SALE” sign, with neon signs in the background reading “HOT DEAL” and “SUCCESS.” The caption claimed that Anatoliy “died a few months before being charged by the State Bureau of Investigations for selling Ukrainian tanks to the Russian Ministry of Defense during his tenure,” implying both corruption and his death.

Generative AI—likely Midjourney or a similar tool—was used in the image:

• Disproportional facial features, unnatural skin texture, and flat lighting with no realistic shadows;
• Visual artifacts on the hands and tank model;
• The “FOR SALE” sign appears illogically inserted and scaled;
• The background features an AI-generated urban landscape with inauthentic texts (“HOT DEAL” and “SUCCESS”), crafted to amplify the manipulative message.

In July 2025, the same Telegram channel published another AI-generated image showing a woman in mourning clothes with the caption: “Irreparable loss. We express our condolences to Yuliya Mostova. We grieve and pray together with Tymur.”
This post fabricated a narrative of death or severe personal tragedy in Mostova’s family, aiming to emotionally harm, humiliate, and intimidate her.

These attacks bear signs of a coordinated campaign targeting:

• Undermining Mostova’s credibility as a respected journalist;
• Discrediting her through association with her husband (military theme, tanks, alleged betrayal);
• Using mourning and grief tropes to humiliate and morally harass her — all of which fall under elements of gender-based online violence.

Both the faces and backgrounds in the images show clear markers of AI generation:

• Unnatural skin texture and lighting;
• Overall styling mimicking a “painterly portrait” or “memorial photo”;
• Over-smoothed shadow transitions and exaggerated eyes—typical of tools like Midjourney or DALL·E;
• Artificially darkened backgrounds enhancing the emotional impact of grief.