Is it true that on three covers of Charlie Hebdo the President of Ukraine is depicted as a dog?

Since the summer, covers of a popular satirical publication have been circulating on social networks, featuring a dog with the face of Vladimir Zelensky. We checked whether three issues of the magazine with these cartoons were actually published.

In July, August and September, Telegram channels and users of other social networks distributed, as they claim, covers of special issues of Charlie Hebdo magazine, which depicted Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in a very unsightly manner.

The cover, which went viral this summer, features a goblin with its head and hat together forming a map of Great Britain. This character is burping Boris Johnson (on July 7 he was just stated about his resignation from the post of prime minister), in the lower right corner there is a dog with Zelensky’s face - in the dog’s mouth there is a human hand with a patch of the Azov regiment (recognized by the Russian authorities as a terrorist organization) on the forearm. “The mixture of a pig and a dog is about Mr. Ze. Although in this case I feel a little sorry for the dogs” - with this comment this cover published on Twitter, the head of the faction “A Just Russia - For Truth!” in the State Duma, ex-head of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov. Ordinary users also shared it this social network, and also Facebook*, LiveJournal And Pikabu. The cover also became popular on Telegram - it was published by channels including “Signal» (715,000 subscribers at the time of writing this analysis), “#Montan!» (526,000), "Ostashko! Important» (338,000) and "Pool N3» (274,000).

At the turn of August and September, a new cover became popular on the Internet, also allegedly adorning a special issue of the satirical publication. This time, the main character is French President Emmanuel Macron, who hoses down the protesters with a fire hose. In front of the police car, on which the French leader is depicted, is again the President of Ukraine in the form of a dog. This time he sniffs some brown substance from a bowl in the colors of the EU flag. The cartoon was actively posted on Telegram, including large Russian-language channels: “Legitimate"(824,000 subscribers), "Bullet" (792,000) and "Signal"(715,000). Mentions of the cover can also be found in Twitter and other social networks.

Finally, in mid-September, a cartoon dedicated to events in Great Britain reappeared. In the center of the image is Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8, and on the left is her son and current monarch Charles III. At the same time, in the inscription on the pedestal in the word queen (“queen”) the last letter was corrected - this is how it happened queer (either “LGBT+ representative” or “weird, unusual”). The brush with the paint used in the correction is again held by Zelensky the dog, dressed in a green T-shirt with a yellow and blue chevron on his paw. This cartoon also went viral on Telegram - it was shared, for example, by a TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov (1.4 million subscribers), channels "Pool N3" (274,000) and "?? Open Ukraine 37# | Open Ukraine 37#» (199,000), users Facebook*, Twitter, Pikabu, "I cried"and even some media.

Let's start with the fact that in those two cartoons where there are inscriptions in French, mistakes were made. So, on the cover depicting Macron, a letter is missing - instead of haud it should be written chaud (“hot”, “warm”). Moreover, the French, caught under water from a water cannon, say “Il fait plus [c]haud chez nous” (“Our house is warmer”), then it would be more logical to formulate their remark as “Il fait plus chaud que chez nous” (“It’s warmer here than at home”). In the case of the cover dedicated to Johnson, the author forgot the letter e at the end of the phrase “La fête est finie" (it is necessary according to the rule of agreeing an adjective with a feminine noun).

We were unable to find virtually any mention of these three covers outside the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet. The exception is Telegram channels in foreign languages, but they mainly reposted publications previously written in Russian. Considering the worldwide fame of Charlie Hebdo and how active each new issue of this publication is are discussing on social networks, such a very limited prevalence of covers raises serious suspicions.

On the Charlie Hebdo website not available numbers with three caricatures of Zelensky. Thus, the issue with a cover about the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II was allegedly published on September 19 - issues of the magazine were published 14 And September 21 (on the cover of the first of them King Charles III was depicted with the caption “Lady Di’s Killer on the Throne”). The issue with a cover about Macron shows the date August 29 - the magazine issues were published 24 And August 31 (the earlier issue actually features a caricature of the French president, but a different one). Judging by the cover of the issue with Johnson, it went on sale on July 9 - in fact, the magazine was published 6 And July 13, none of them were dedicated to the ex-prime minister in particular or Great Britain in general.

Moreover, the three covers depicting the Ukrainian president as a dog have a numéro spécial (“special number”) at the top. These special editions of Charlie Hebdo are presented in the same card index on the magazine's website. Last special number was released June 1, 2022.

September 23 Charlie Hebdo magazine published on its website a statement dedicated to the covers of special issues of the publication that are replicated on the Internet. The text says that the editors learned about their existence from a freelancer from Russia named Misha, who sent them links to viral images in Telegram channels. Charlie Hebdo described the cartoons as "poorly drawn" in a statement. “The Telegram application with its 70 million users in Russia, originally created to escape from Russian intelligence services, is becoming a caricature of itself,” the publication concludes, emphasizing that its authors will continue to denounce “Putin’s madness.”

The earliest posts we could find about all three covers were actually posted on Telegram. According to the TGStat service, the first to post them were:

• cover with the image of Boris Johnson - anonymous channel "Heavenly» (480,000 subscribers) July 12 at noon Moscow time;
• cover with the image of Emmanuel Macron - anonymous channel "Pool N3» (274 000) September 1 at 15:16 Moscow time;
• cover depicting the funeral of Elizabeth II - the channel of the media manager and former commissioner of the Russian pro-government youth movement “Nashi” Christina Potupchik (169 000) September 20 at 11:02 Moscow time. Note that in early October Potupchik was the first published a fake cover of the American edition of Mad linking the Nord Stream explosions with the White House.

Thus, issues of Charlie Hebdo with covers on which the President of Ukraine is depicted as a dog were not published. They are not mentioned either in the card index on the publication’s website or in its social networks. At the same time, the editors of the magazine published a statement denying any involvement in the appearance of such images. As we were able to establish, for the first time all three covers were posted in Russian-language Telegram channels that had nothing to do with Charlie Hebdo.

Correction November 29, 2022: Initially, this text erroneously stated that the last special issue of Charlie Hebdo magazine at the time of writing was published in September 2020. The text of the analysis before making corrections is available at link.

*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Cover photo: Telegram

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Lead Stories. Fact Check: Ukraine's Zelenskyy Did NOT Appear On Charlie Hebdo Cover As 'An Obedient Dog At The European Feeder'
2. Liberation. La propagande anti-ukrainienne diffuse des fausses unes de “Charlie Hebdo” pour s’en prendre à Zelensky
3. MythDetector. Fake cartoons from the cover of Charlie Hebdo are being distributed throughout Ukraine
4. Is the Time cover about Vladimir Zelensky refusing to use the letters V and Z real?
5. Is it true that the “non-mainstream press” in the United States admitted the White House’s guilt in the Nord Stream explosions?