Fake Yorkshire Post story shared online by Russians keen to stop volunteers joining Ukrainian forces

The fabricated story stated former Royal Marine Raymonds Simmonds is “dissuading foreigners from fighting” after he spent a year on the frontline of the conflict.

The Yorkshire Post said it did not publish the story on its website and it is clearly fake.

The piece is being shared on social media and the instant messaging service Telegram, which is popular in Russia.

Russian blogger Victor Vicktop posted a photograph of the fake story on X and wrote: “The British publication Yorkshire Post writes about this.

“The photo is good, on topic. It's pretty clear from Simons' face that he's realized that fighting Russia is obviously a bad idea.”

Yorkshire Post journalist Nathan Hyde said he did not write the story and does not know why his byline is on it.

“The fake story appears to be a piece of Russian disinformation designed to deter people from fighting with the Ukrainian troops,” he said. “I was very surprised to see my byline on it.”

It has been almost two years since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In November, the United Nations stated 10,000 civilians, including more than 560 children, have been killed and over 18,500 have been injured.

US intelligence agents claim Ukraine has lost more than 70,000 troops in the fighting and more than 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured. Neither side has revealed casualty numbers.

Earlier this week, General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing Chief of the General Staff (CGS), suggested Britain may need to conscript people to fight Russian forces in the future as its army is too small.

Sir Patrick, in a speech at the International Armoured Vehicles conference, said Britain should “train and equip” a “citizen army” to ready the country for a potential land war.

Pointing to Sweden introducing a form of military service for its population, the head of the Army said at least 45,000 reservists and citizens should be trained up in the next three years to top-up the current army size of 74,000, in what he called a “whole-of-nation undertaking”.

But the government has ruled out any suggestion that conscription was under consideration, saying there were “no plans” to change the British military’s “proud tradition of being a voluntary force”.