On October 27, Ukrainian blogger and volunteer Sergei Sternenko drew attention to the fact that Manko, who was to become the commander of the Assault Troops of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, published photos of a map marked “Secret” on TikTok. According to Sternenko, such a publication could help the enemy. He added screenshots of messages from the social network X, where people, including military personnel, are outraged by the situation. Now these photos are no longer on the colonel’s account. Manko himself claims that these are not military maps, especially without the “Secret” stamp.
“The Main Directorate of Communications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has processed your information request about the dissemination by the head of the Directorate of Assault Troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel Valentin Mank, on the TikTok social network of a series of photographs in which topographic maps are visible. Based on the results of processing, we inform you that the presence (or absence) of restricted information in the information disseminated by Colonel Valentin Mank can only be established after an appropriate assessment. Informing the public about the issue raised is possible after such an assessment by a secrets expert in accordance with the distribution of powers,” the Main Directorate said.
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This is not the first scandal that Manko has recently gotten into because of TikTok.
On October 19, the ex-chief of staff of the 12th Brigade of the Azov National Guard, Bogdan Krotevich, said that Manko published videos on TikTok and Instagram with Russian music, recorded after the start of a full-scale war of the aggressor country Russia against Ukraine. In particular, Manko danced to the song “…bu dal” from the Russian group “Pnevmoslon” and chose which character he was from the Russian TV series “The Boy's Word” to the song “Don't Forget” by the Russian group “Combination”.
The military man responded to this that when he “danced” to Russian songs in his videos, he was not such a media person, and apologized. The defender emphasized that for the most part he is trying to see how and how the enemy country lives.
