On January 23, 2022, the “News of the Week” program aired a video in which the future president of Ukraine allegedly chose a very provocative way to joke about the national anthem. We have verified the accuracy of this video.

In the traditional final news release on the Russia 1 channel, presenter Dmitry Kiselyov discussed the foreign policy of Ukraine and its President Vladimir Zelensky, who, before being elected to this position in 2019 was popular actor, comedian and TV presenter. Kiselev, in particular, stated: “They used to laugh until they dropped at his numbers. For example, how originally comedian Zelensky performed the Ukrainian anthem while still in the profession. When there are two musicians at the piano keyboard, this game is called “four hands.” And here you don’t even know how to properly define this duet. To begin, the pianists take off their pants. They raise their hands high, and now a melody flows, as if played with one finger. However, no, two.” At the same time, viewers of Vesti Nedeli were shown a fragment of a speech by Zelensky and his partner in the Evening Quarter show, in which the melody of the Ukrainian anthem sounded. “And now I want to ask: when was Zelensky real, performing the anthem of his country - when he was without pants or when he still had pants on?” - Kiselyov summed up.

How found out fact checker Yuri Bershidsky, the fragment shown on the air of “Russia-1” does not coincide with the real recording of the concert during which Zelensky participated in this number. Performance took place in the summer of 2016 in Jurmala. The actors of the show “Evening Quarter” Vladimir Zelensky and Yuri Krapov “played” not the anthem of Ukraine, but completely different works: the Chopsticks waltz, the habanera from the opera “Carmen” and the song “Hava Nagila”.

Apparently, the Ukrainian comedians based their act on the performances of the American duo The Freaking Brothers. They first became show it no later than 2007. The video became quite popular, loaded on YouTube in 2008. Already another duet of American comedians repeated number in 2019. These recordings, as well as the recording of the concert with Zelensky’s participation, feature the same musical selection, which does not include the Ukrainian anthem.

The “News of the Week” program, in turn, used a video with a substitute audio track. A fragment of the final news release, in which Zelensky allegedly plays the piano with his penis, coincides with the video recording, published on YouTube in the fall of 2019, a little over three years after the concert in Jurmala and after Zelensky was elected president.