Is it true that actor Konstantin Khabensky publicly supported Ukraine?

In March 2022, information appeared on many social networks that the famous actor criticized the actions of the Russian authorities regarding Ukraine. We checked if this is true.

Here is the text circulating on many Internet resources signed by Konstantin Khabensky:

“As soon as I started talking about Ukraine, criticism and insults immediately rained down on me. Friends, stop before it's too late! Yes, I am for Ukraine, and I don’t see anything bad here! Friends, since you have such a negative attitude towards me and all the news, I will delete all accounts in the near future! Communicate with other Russian stars - for example, Sergei Bezrukov, Tina Kandelaki, etc. I wish everyone happiness and prosperity, everyone who loves me, and those who don’t love me too!”

Taken March 19 publication user Natalia Suprunets with this text caused about 14,000 reposts on Facebook. There were others that were quite popular publications. The news was also posted by a news resource "Dnieper Panorama".

Attempts to find the said statement by Khabensky on more or less reputable resources (including his personal accounts on social networks) are doomed to failure. The actor made the only noticeable statement on the situation in Ukraine on March 3, and it was posted on the official page of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, which he heads. Facebook:

“Dear friends!

I have never participated in politics or discussing politics, and today I am not going to do so either. Today, any opinion of a person speaking for or against causes a storm of negativity in society. Let's respect each other's opinions, let's at least not carry out public reprisals on social networks.

In today's circumstances, when people are dying every day, it is very difficult for me and many of my colleagues, psychologically difficult to go on stage and do our job, but we will continue to do our job. Because theater is the place where they talk about man, about the life of the human spirit, about the value of human life.

Sincerely,

Konstantin Khabensky".

As we see, in his address Khabensky not only did not accept any of the positions, but even excluded cases of similar behavior in the past.

We mentioned the past for a reason. The fact is that the first instances of the text we are considering appearing on the Internet date back to March 2014, shortly after the start of the events in Crimea and Donbass. On March 15, on one of the pages on VKontakte (k.habenskiy_official), signed with the name of Khabensky, first appeared recording, in which he stated: “Friends, you all know what is happening in Ukraine, and I want to tell you only one thing: I support Ukraine and condemn the policies of Vladimir Putin.” The publication caused a wide response and collected almost 6,000 likes, despite the fact that only 2,600 people subscribed to the profile. And two hours later another entry appeared on the page, which also instantly went viral:

Finally, the third entry on the page was the text we were looking at about insults. Today, like the first two, she unavailable.

Nevertheless, all three records went viral not only on social networks, but also on popular Media, including those quoted by a famous journalist Dmitry Gordon and Lithuanian edition Delfi. And this despite the fact that back in December 2013, the actor statedthat he does not use social networks and his only window of communication with fans is his page Charitable Foundation of Konstantin Khabensky.

The next day, March 16, people began to have a reasonable question: is the page on which the scandalous posts appeared authentic? Despite the fact that there were famous people among the subscribers of the Twitter account linked to the page (for example, presenter Ivan Kudryavtsev), the page turned out to be included in a whole network of profiles with fake verification checkboxes. Among the false Khabensky’s colleagues were the imaginary accounts of Ekaterina Guseva, Mikhail Porechenkov, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Elizaveta Boyarskaya, Maria Shukshina and several dozen other actors and musicians. In conversation with the publication TJournal the then press secretary of VKontakte, Georgy Lobushkin, confirmed that Konstantin Khabensky was not among the verified pages of the social network. On the same day, Khabensky himself in an interview Life News stated that he had nothing to do with statements attributed to him about disagreement with Russia’s position on the Crimean issue.

On March 17, 2014, another account of a certain Konstantin Khabensky was registered on VKontakte, where the next day recording: “I have never used social networks before, without having any need or need for it. But, unfortunately, some people consider it possible to register pages under my name and use this for their personal or commercial purposes.

I was never interested in the motivations of these people, and I tried to ignore their actions. But for some time now, the owners of “my” pages began to abuse the trust of subscribers who thought that it was really me who was writing this. These people began posting “personal information” on my behalf, requests for donations unrelated to my charity, and even political statements. Some media began to reprint these messages as information received from me.

I would like to be left with the right to speak or not to speak about certain things personally, and not pass off someone’s fabrications as my statements. Therefore, I decided to register my official pages on social networks.

I work a lot and still prefer face-to-face communication to online communication, so there will be no personal information here. But this page will be the only official VKontakte. Any other page in my name is a fraud, and I advise you not to trust the information that is written there.

Sincerely yours, Konstantin Khabensky."

Someone may doubt: what if this refutation was made from a fake page? However, there is no doubt about this, since this page referred the same aforementioned VK group of the Konstantin Khabensky Charitable Foundation. In the same March, both pages were officially verified by the social network VKontakte.

Thus, the sensational statement by Konstantin Khabensky regarding the Ukrainian events is a fake, dating back to 2014.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?