A video and set of screenshots claiming that Alexey Zhuravlev, first deputy chairman of the State Duma's Defense Committee, wrote to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin proposing that military contract service be offered as an alternative to fines for public drinking has been exposed as a fake, fact-checkers said on August 24.
The claim, which spread widely on social media, included a video of the lawmaker along with screenshots of the purported letter. It suggested a similar scheme was already operating in Russia's Omsk Region, where people fined under Article 20.20, part 1, of the Administrative Code, which covers drinking alcohol in prohibited places, were said to be sent to military recruitment points to sign contracts.
No such practice exists in Omsk Region or anywhere else in Russia, and there are no official documents supporting the claim, fact-checkers said. The offense carries only an administrative fine of between 500 and 1,500 rubles.
Earlier claims about Omsk Region
Opposition-aligned channels had previously circulated claims that people in Omsk Region were being pressured to sign military contracts after being fined for drinking in public. The regional administration did not confirm those reports.
Signs of a deepfake
Fact-checkers said the circulating video showed unnatural facial expressions and robotic-sounding speech, both signs of AI-generated content. Neither the video nor the letter appeared on Zhuravlev's own social media accounts.
The footage used to build the deepfake was taken from an older video in which the lawmaker discussed a lawsuit against the Yabloko party, according to the fact-check. Zefir, a monitoring system that combines five neural-network models to detect fabricated audiovisual content, confirmed the video had been produced with artificial intelligence.
Inconsistencies in the letter
The fake appeal was dated August 19 of this year and carried a header identifying it as coming from the eighth convocation of the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament. That convocation, however, ended its work on July 27. The document also oddly repeated the closing line "with respect" by hand, even though the phrase had already appeared in type earlier in the letter. No such letter has been published on Zhuravlev's social media.
No such policy exists
Fact-checkers said Russia has no practice of forcing people to sign military contracts as punishment for administrative offenses. Around 200,000 people have signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense since the start of the year, they noted. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, has said about 40,000 of those recruits joined drone forces, while another 16,000 joined volunteer units.
Russian media outlets did not report the claim that the State Duma had proposed contract service as an alternative to alcohol fines. The fact-check was prepared with the participation of Lapsha Media, an organization that works to counter disinformation.
