COUNTERFEITING IN INDEPENDENT UKRAINE: HISTORICAL ASPECT

MESSAGE 3. 2000–2023: MEDIA ABOUT THE COUNTERFEITING, FAKE RUSSIAN RUBLES IN THE TEMPORARY OCCUPIED TERRITORIES AFTER THE MOSCOW INTERVENTION

Abstract

This article tells about the main trends in money counterfeiting in Ukraine in the new millennium.
The Ukrainian hryvnia continues to improve technically. The degree of its protection increases. But even further, after
2000, attempts to forge hryvnia banknotes were observed both in Ukraine and abroad. The new rubles of Russia are
also became the samples for counterfeiting, but forged Belarusian rubles were practically not been found in Ukraine.
Along with the counterfeiting of paper money, the development of digital technologies and communication platforms
of Internet, the sales channels for counterfeits are also changing. Money circulation in the temporarily occupied
territories of the South of Ukraine after the full-scale invasion of Russian troops on February 24, 2022, did not escape
the fact of the spread of fake Russian rubles in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk regions. The methodological
basis of this study is a complex of general scientific methods: empirical (comparison, measurement); empirical
and theoretical (analysis and synthesis, historical and logical, abstraction, induction and deduction); theoretical
(presentation of materials from abstract to concrete, interpretation, description, etc.). Considering the specifics of the
research, the use of numismatic methods occupies an important place. The scientific novelty consists in highlighting
the latest ways of spreading fake money through the social networks, including Telegram, applying wall inscriptions
with the help of aerosol paint, etc. In addition, the main trends and interesting facts from the history of money
counterfeiting in Ukraine from 2000 to the present are revealed, which, in the context of the two previous reports,
outlines the main trends and processes related to money counterfeiting in Ukraine from independence to the present,
in focus of their historical component and collecting. It was established that the occupiers attempt to introduce the
ruble into circulation in the temporarily occupied territories of the South of Ukraine and the Kherson region was
unsuccessful. The main reason for this is the low level of readiness of the population of the occupied territories to
cooperate with the occupying authorities and promote the use of the enemy's currency. Loud statements about the
transition of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to the ruble zone can be regarded as another attempt by the newly
appointed leaders to curry favor among collaborators in front of their leaders in the Kremlin. The unsuccessful process
of introducing the ruble into the currency of the temporarily occupied territories was also accompanied by frequent
reports of the discovery of fake money of the moscowian occupier. The practical significance lies in the possibility
of using the presented materials in researching the history of money circulation and criminal illegality, studying the
peculiarities of criminal illegality in the conditions of occupation and war. The described modern methods of attempts
by criminals to spread counterfeit money will be useful in developing methods of countering them.