In 2014, leading Russian television channels distributed the news about the next publication on the scandalous resource of WikiLeaks. According to the report, in declassified correspondence with Washington, the future US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft, who previously held a similar position in Ukraine, called the hymn of the last “howl from which flies will die”. We checked if there was such a publication.

The information message in question was picked up by such famous media "Russia 24", "World" (the publication is deleted), "Komsomolskaya Pravda", the oldest Georgian news agency "Georginform" And many others. Teffta quote had the following view:

“It was especially impossible to listen to their anthem. It's like some kind of torture! They will drag out in chorus: "Shche not Vmeral Ukraine ..." It seems that you are buried alive. Some kind of oppressive, heartbreaking longing attacks, which sometimes seems that the flies will die in the district from this howl. It was unbearable to listen to this howl that it would sometimes seem easier to die. ”

And in 2019, on the official website of the President of Ukraine appeared petition With a request to change the text and music of the state anthem. The author of the petition, Nikolai Isaev, among the arguments, brought the same scandalous report to Washington.

Let us turn to the original source, which is discussed in all messages: Wikileaks. The publications of this organization more than once or twice led to big scandals, since at least part of the information in them turned out to be true. Painstaking search On the site of this resource it does not lead to anything: there is no similar publication with the mention of Tefft there. There are no such news and with any other defendants.

But Russian -language messages with this news, how easy it is to determine, appeared long before 2014. In particular, Record The authorship of Vladimir Skachko, which contained the familiar text “Recently from the notes of the famous Vikiliks and from the Internet, it became known as the American ambassador ...” was published on February 14, 2011 on the website of “versions.com”. But in the English -speaking publications of that time there is nothing similar. What could have put on one of the users to compose (or repost) such a message?

This motivator could become news From February 10 (four days before the publication of Skachko), which stated that the People’s Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Dmitry Vetvitsky submitted a bill on a change in the first verse of the national anthem.

As for the mention of John Tefft, along with the anthem of Ukraine in solid sources, then one. In August 2011, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence in the official blog of the US Embassy, a congratulatory article Teffta, where he, in particular, wrote:

“In 1991, it became clear that the dream of the independence of Ukraine was simply driven underground and never left the hearts of people. As stated in the text of the national anthem of Ukraine behind the authorship of the poet of the 19th century Pavel Chubinsky, "Shche did not die of Ukrainian" - "Ukraine has not yet died."

As you can see, he wrote rather respectfully and after the appearance of a sensation of dubious origin in the network. And the “leak” of Tefft's letters, in all likelihood, is the fruit of someone’s fantasy.