Is it true that Charlie Hebdo published an issue with a cover about a power outage in Kyiv?

Internet users are distributing a cartoon allegedly drawn by artists of a popular French magazine and dedicated to power outages in the Ukrainian capital. We have verified the accuracy of such messages.

The drawing, which allegedly appeared on the cover of a special issue of Charlie Hebdo, is a black rectangle with a geolocation icon and the word “Kyiv” in the center. “And so we turned to the dark side,” says the line in the bubble. This is likely a reference to a T-shirt recently worn by the Ukrainian president, which had an English message that could be translated as “come to the dark side.” Due to the fact that that T-shirt depicted armed men with chevrons in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, one of whom was stepping on the head of a skeleton in a spacesuit with the inscription “USSR”, such a choice of clothing was actively discussed in mid-October Russian pro-government publications. However, the cover would not have been so topical if not for the regular shelling of Ukrainian energy facilities that began in October. By assessment Office of the President of Ukraine, from October 10 to October 18, 30% of all power plants in the country were completely or partially damaged, which led to massive power outages in different regions.

The cover was especially actively distributed on Telegram. On October 21 and 22, it was published by at least 300 channels, including “Putin on Telegram"(882,000 subscribers at the time of writing this analysis), "Peacemaker" (824 000), "From the scene"(816,000), "Bullet"(795,000), "Breaking news"(656,000), "Moment"(516,000), "Dmitry Vasilets» (452,000), Intel Slava Z (428,000), "DPR ?Info??"(376,000), ""Special Operation Z" | Yuri Podolyaka+"(363,000), "War history weapons" (358,000), "Ostashko! Important"(338,000) and Putin TG Team (304,000). The cover was also distributed by dozens of public pages on VKontakte: “Great Russia - this country cannot be defeated!"(405,000), "World War III"(306,000), "Russia | Z O V | General Staff reports"(277,000), "The USA is a sponsor of global terror (16+)"(266,000), "Self-defense of Gorlovka» (174,000) and many others. The cartoon was also published by the TV channelConstantinople", publications Ura.ru And Regnum, users Facebook*, Twitter, LiveJournal and other social networks.

In the upper right corner of the cover distributed on the Internet, it is indicated that it was allegedly posted in a special issue of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo dated October 21, 2022, which was published under number 1579. On the publication’s website under this number appears a completely different cover dedicated to politician Eric Zemmour, and it was published not on October 21, but on October 26. The previous issue - No. 1578 - became available readers on October 19, the cartoon on its cover is dedicated to fuel shortages in France. Note that the last time Charlie Hebdo released special issue June 1, 2022.

In previous months, Internet users had already distributed There are at least three images on the Internet that were passed off as covers of special issues of Charlie Hebdo magazine. All these cartoons are missing from the card index on the publication’s website, and the output data (number and date) did not correspond to the order of publication of the issues. Charlie Hebdo editors even released a special statement in which she called the fakes “poorly drawn” and emphasized that she had nothing to do with them. In all three cases, the images are practically not found outside the Russian-language segment of the Internet, and we found the earliest publications in which the covers appeared on Telegram: two in the anonymous channels “Nebozhena” and “Pool N3”, one in the channel of the media manager and former commissar of the Russian pro-government movement “Nashi” Kristina Potupchik.

We see a similar picture in the case of the cartoon about a power outage in Kyiv. Judging by the data from the TGStat service, it was the first published at 14:55 Moscow time on October 21 Telegram channel “Yakov Kedmi”. Although this channel does not have a verification badge, it apparently belongs to a regular guest of Vladimir Solovyov’s TV show and streams - a TV presenter on his channel tied up this account is with an Israeli expert. Both in Solovyov’s channel and in the Russian media, Kedmi is called the ex-head of the Israeli intelligence service “Nativ” - in fact, this institution is engaged supporting cultural ties between Jews in Israel and the Diaspora, and also helps with repatriation issues.

Apparently, the blackout cover is a new creation by an anonymous author who passes off his drawings as Charlie Hebdo cartoons and whose works begin to spread across Russian-language Telegram channels every few weeks. At the same time, there is no issue with such a cover on the website or social networks of the popular French magazine, but another issue with a different caricature was published under the same issue.

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

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