The web is flooded with poems about fallen soldiers, attributed to an anonymous “Solomiya Ukrainets”. These emotional texts have become a clickbait tool in the Ukrainian segment of Facebook and are also used to discredit military service. Chinese bots and Russian clickbait resources targeting the Ukrainian audience are particularly active in spreading them.
In the Ukrainian media, Solomiya Ukrainets is often characterized as an information project that spreads manipulation and Russian propaganda. In contrast, anonymous pro-Russian resources such as the Strana website present her as a real person, a poet who openly criticizes the government.
The analytical publication Texty (texty.org.ua) notes that after ten years of presence in the Ukrainian Internet space, Solomiya Ukrainets has gained a reputation as the “queen of clickbait.” Her poems in the form of images are often shared on Viber and Facebook among older people. Even civil servants order poems from her to congratulate their superiors.
“Solomiya Ukrainets has a huge audience and influence, skillfully using the most painful problems of Ukrainian society for manipulation. Its narratives often coincide with Russian propaganda. The purpose of this campaign, which reaches millions of users, remains unknown, but it clearly has nothing to do with commemorating fallen soldiers. Rather, it appears to be exploiting grief to attract an audience and is possibly part of a Russian campaign to disrupt mobilization in Ukraine.
In addition to poems about the dead, the Solomiya Ukrainets group publishes numerous sad posts every day, suggesting that war victims are useless and that politicians are to blame. In these texts, the line of demarcation is not between Ukrainians and Russians, but between “politicians” and “military”, “rich” and “poor”.
This is a classic Russian propaganda technique aimed at weakening the victim country. “Solomiya Ukrayinets also pits fighters against commanders, mothers of the dead against the government. Its activities meet the definition of “undermining trust in leaders and state institutions.”
The poems often contrast “ordinary people” and “generals” and accuse “sons of generals” of avoiding military service. Similar poems with the same plot were circulated about different soldiers, which raises suspicions about their authenticity.
Mothers who have faced indifference from the state respond to Solomiya Ukrainets’ emotional texts, which remind them of their grief and reinforce their sense of social injustice.
The Solomiya Ukrainets group has replaced the psychological support that mothers do not receive from the community or the state. However, it does not offer real help, but only manipulates and cultivates “black grief.”
The texts are often written using numbers, symbols, foreign letters, and spaces in words, which is a standard practice of propaganda, particularly Russian propaganda, to circumvent search algorithms.
In a time of war, when bad news affects almost everyone, “all-access” can resonate with many people.
A woman who calls herself “Solomiya Ukrainets” claims to be 32 years old, but her voice sounds much older.
The page “Solomiya Ukrainets” has been repeatedly accused of spreading Russian propaganda. It actively criticizes the TCC, promotes news on clickbait sites, and spreads Russian narratives about Ukraine.
Among them:
- Reproductions of Shevchenko’s poems that promote “treason.”
- Glorification of Kuzma Scriabin as a “prophet of the nation.”
- ridiculing rapprochement with Europe.
It is important to remember that mobilization is indeed ongoing in Ukraine, soldiers are dying, and the army has problems. But it is also true that the country cannot survive without mobilization, that not everyone dies in the war, and that there are decent people among the commanders. Reforms are underway in the army, and the government and NGOs provide support to the military and their families.
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