Hoax Job Ad Promotes Claim Africans 'Recruited' by Ukraine Military

Posts on Twitter and Reddit, claiming that the U.K. and E.U. were secretly recruiting citizens from the African continent to join the Ukrainian military, gathered thousands of views since May 17. Most of the posts included a screenshot from an U.K.-based jobs site as "evidence" of such efforts.

But, as Newsweek Misinformation Watch has discovered, there are numerous red flags about the now-frozen listing, which indicate that it may have been part of a disinformation campaign to discredit Ukraine.

With reports that a Ukrainian counteroffensive in its war against Russia is imminent, propaganda and disinformation from both sides have been ramping up, including mutual accusations of recruiting foreign mercenaries.

Some of the false claims targeting the Ukrainian military and public figures, often traced to Russian-language accounts, have also been amplified by conservative commentators and political figures in the West.

On Wednesday, May 24, a screenshot of what appeared to be an advert for a "Military Maintenance Technician" vacancy on the job search site Adzuna was shared by Twitter users, including those known to distribute Russia-sourced misinformation.

"We invite citizens from the Middle East and North Africa to participate in a voluntary program to assist Ukraine on a competitive basis," the job description, archived here, said.

"Requirements: Military specialists with good health and psychological stability are required to participate in the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Participants must understand all risks and sign a waiver of claims.

"Conditions:

- High contract payment

- After the contract expires and compliance with requirements is verified, accelerated citizenship in the UK or EU is guaranteed," the job spec said.

The screenshot of the vacancy page soon began spreading in different languages on social media.

"UK is recruiting mercenaries from Africa and the Middle East to be sent to Ukraine," "Spriter" account said in a post that received nearly 150,00 views.

It was retweeted by a number of prominent figures, including former British politician and Russia Today contributor George Galloway, and another account, which recently shared fake photos of a "Pentagon explosion."

Another post, by French politician François Asselineau, who has recently questioned the theory that Russia was behind the Nord Stream pipeline explosion, said tweeted in French:

"UKRAINE RECRUITS MERCENARIES FOR COUNTER-OFFENSIVE."

"Job search meta engine Adzuna is currently recruiting mercenaries in the Middle East and Maghreb for: £20,000/contract (23,000 €)," adding the job site screenshot and a link to a Russian pro-war social media VK account post.

"A strange job offer offers citizens of North Africa and the Middle East to participate in a 'voluntary program' in Ukraine. At the end of the contract, the 'volunteers' (if they are still alive) can obtain the citizenship of a European country," posted another French-language Twitter account, receiving more than 500,000 views.

Several Russian news outlets and Telegram channels, including Russia's most popular military blogger Rybar, also reported the claim, and it was also shared on a pro-Chinese online military-related forum.

Job Listing's Dubious Provenance

However, Newsweek spotted a number of signs—including linguistic clues, technical inconsistencies and a lack of transparency—that raise questions about the authenticity of the Adzana "job listing," which has since been frozen pending investigation, according to the company's representatives.

Some of the phrasing used in the advertisement indicates the author was likely not a native English speaker. Phrases such as "specialists with good health and psychological stability," are both awkwardly constructed and seem to be a strange choice of words for a job description.

The sentence "Participate in a voluntary program to assist on a competitive basis," likewise, appears odd, as does the listing of "high contract payment" as a "condition" of employment.

While the contract type is stated as "Permanent," a "UK or EU citizenship is guaranteed "after the contract expires," raising further doubts about the spec.

There are also a number of logical and factual inconsistencies. For one, the job appears to be based in the U.K, but offers "UK/EU citizenships" to applicants—despite the fact that the U.K. has left the E.U. as part of the Brexit process. Programmes to offer E.U. citizens settlement in the U.K. ran in the past, but ended in 2021.

The location is simply stated as "Sands End." Newsweek initially found two such locations in the U.K.: one was an ancient parish in the Hammersmith Borough of London, and another (spelt "Sandsend") was in the English county of Yorkshire. The current version of the advert did not provide any additional location information.

However, a French-speaking open-source intelligence (OSINT) researcher claims to have reached out to an account purportedly linked to the job listing, which directed him to the supportukraine.uk website for more information. The account refused to provide any evidence of its affiliation with the Support for Ukraine organization.

Support Ukraine, whose headquarters are located in the same part of London,— Fulham—as the address of the listing (and which appeared on one of the archived, since deleted, versions of the job ad circulating on social media), dismissed being linked to said listing, adding that it had notified the police about it.

"We noticed our Fulham address was used for an advert looking for mercenaries. It has nothing to do with us, as we are humanitarian organization. We already reported the ad to police. Thanks for your trust and continuous support.

"We do however see it as an attempt to discredit our platform and to destabilise our work as well as an overall attempt to disgrace Ukrainian society. We will continue working with the British authorises on resolving this matter," a statement by the Support Ukraine Team said on its social media pages.

While the listing does not state the company offering the position, a similar posting on Gumtree, now deleted but available via screengrabs, notes the company as "EU Citizenship Program." No such company is listed by U.K. Companies House.

Newsweek also found an archived version (with earliest one dated May 17, 2023) of the listing which contains more details, including a Gmail inbox account and the contact name, "Sofya Romanyuk."

Newsweek emailed the said address for details, and received a number of responses, including the claim that "we are working on this together with the Office of the President and European partners to bring the legal framework in line."

"As for the selection process and requirements, citizens of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa are primarily considered in order to "help" the countries of Europe and Britain with illegal migrants and redirect refugee flows to Ukraine to compensate for the losses of the local population," the respondent said in another email.

However, when Newsweek asked for supporting evidence or additional details about the contact, company or its affiliations, which would help verify its legitimacy or demonstrate a connection to Support of Ukraine (or any other known U.K. or E.U. organizations or officials), the email contact did not respond.

We also found a number of Sofya (or Sophia) Romanyuk accounts on LinkedIn, including ones based in Latvia, Ukraine and Russia, but none appeared to have EU-linked organizations or Support Ukraine in their profile histories.

We were unable to find any "EU Citizenship Programme" being run by the E.U., nor does the organization typically use Gmail for its internal communications, instead using the email handle europa.eu.

Responding to a Newsweek request for comment, a representative for Adzuna said that the ad has "caused quite a stir on the Internet" and the site "paused any applications to this role."

"We also removed the client's contact details. We are currently investigating the authenticity of this unusual job ad, as we are not aware of a government scheme that it references being in existence, and have paused applications to it in the meantime," the platform told Newsweek via email.

The representative also rejected Newsweek's request for additional information on the job poster citing the company's GDPR obligations.

Newsweek could not independently and conclusively corroborate Support Ukraine's claims tying the job posting to Russia's "hybrid warfare" and an unnamed French far-right group.

But the overall lack of transparency and details contained in the posting, questions about the listing's authenticity raised by the job site company, and the refusal of the main contact point to provide supporting information are all indicators of inauthenticity.

Furthermore, the route that the story has taken on social media, spreading via pro-Russian accounts, French far-right commentators and QAnon communities including 4Chan, hint at a possible nefarious disinformation campaign.

Newsweek will update this story if and when more information on this matter becomes available.