"Canadian
Ukrainian Volunteer", a self-described member of a "four-man team"
fighting in 
Kherson, Ukraine with over 118,000 followers on Twitter, has
deleted his account after being exposed as a fraud.
For months on end, @canadianukran1 wowed followers with tales of unflinching heroism and glory.
In
one post in April, he claimed to have infiltrated a Russian-controlled
area of southern Ukraine on a bicycle while disguised as a Russian
trooper. “Our contact had warned us to remain in the shadows and not to expose
ourselves to spying eyes. A window opening above us or a flicker of
someone’s cigarette from a balcony, a barking dog in the distance, all
were enough for us to cling to the walls in the darkness and hold our
breath,” the "volunteer" wrote, apparently taking literary inspiration
from a John le Carre spy thriller novel.....@canadianukran1 posted selfies of fighters standing against the
background of burnt-out tanks, bombastically adding tag lines such as
“Excellent harvest this spring. Glory to Ukraine.” On other occasions,
he would post mundane photos of gear, of himself in the field or at
rest, and regaling readers with tales about beating back the Russian
hordes, discussing the effects of combat exhaustion, and posting photos
of troops with “balls of steel” who “barely flinch” amid incoming
artillery attacks.
The
"real" Canadian Ukrainian Volunteer was exposed as a fake after online
sleuths paying close attention to his posts revealed that his weapons
were just airsoft guns, and that his kit consisted of replicas.
Eventually,
NexusIntel, an open-source intelligence expert, contacted the Twitter
poster with a phishing link news story about other Canadians fighting in
Ukraine that captures the IP address of those who click on it. “He
clicked twice and then blocked me,” NexusIntel recalled in an interview with The Telegraph. The sleuth discovered that the brave volunteer was posting from Ontario, not Ukraine.
“The only truthful thing that he ever said was that he was Canadian, in my opinion,” NexusIntel said." Sputnik
