After scandal erupts, controversial Ukrainian colonel denies sharing 'classified' front-line maps on TikTok
A controversial Ukrainian colonel has been accused by military personnel and volunteers of breaching operational security after releasing a TikTok video where he allegedly displayed internal battlefield maps used by the army.
The video was highlighted on Telegram by Serhii Filimonov, a commander of the 108th Separate Mechanized Battalion "Da Vinci Wolves," who attached screenshots of Colonel Valentin Manko standing in front of a map labeled with blue and red triangles.
"I can't comprehend that this person is being considered as a candidate for the position of commander of the assault troops," Filimonov said in a post on social media on Oct. 26.
The map is said to have shown the front in southeastern Zaporizhzhia Oblast, according to Ukrainian Telegram channels.
Manko denied the accusation, insisting that the map displayed was not an internal military one and that no sensitive information had been shared. Calling media reports about the scandal "a provocation," Manko said that what was displayed was "just a regular Google Maps" where he had marked which settlements were under Russian and Ukrainian control.
"Someone, besides the enemy, deliberately wants to turn the military into useless, stupid people who can't think," Manko wrote in his Oct. 28 Facebook post. "This humiliates all armed forces."
The Kyiv Independent reached out to Manko for a comment on Facebook, but he did not answer by the time of publication. Manko appears to have deleted his TikTok account as soon as the scandal unfolded, before the Kyiv Independent watched the original video that sparked the controversy.
OPSEC has been a headache in the war for both Ukraine and Russia, with both sides' army members — usually soldiers who sometimes don't know what they are allowed to film and aren't — accidentally giving clues to the other side about position or military base locations.
The international intelligence community InformNapalm said "addiction to TikTok among officials who have access to state secrets is pure absurdity," criticizing Manko for releasing photos of front-line maps labeled as "classified."
"Enemy OSINT specialists are probably clapping their hands in delight, celebrating that a TikToker with classified maps has appeared in Ukraine," InformNapalm wrote in a Oct. 27 X post.
Prominent Ukrainian activist and volunteer Serhii Sternenko also criticized Manko.
"Publishing such photos can help the enemy," he said in a Oct. 27 Telegram post.
Manko has previously been criticized for releasing videos showing his closeness to Russian culture, such as an Instagram story released in June 2024 where he is dancing topless to a Russian-language song — which has been looked down upon after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and relaunched a country-wide war in 2022.
In a video released by Ukrainian media Hromadske on Oct. 21, Manko said that he studied at Russian-language institutions but stressed that he has been depending Ukraine at great cost and can speak Ukrainian.
"I have been wounded and shell-shocked many times," Manko told Hromadske, stressing that he has led Ukrainian troops not "out of the bunker and not sitting on a couch somewhere."
Kateryna Hodunova
