In August 2022, the media and social networks reported an unusual correspondence between the President of Ukraine, who supported Taiwan and the foreign policy of the island, which in response asked: "Who are you?" We checked the reliability of such publications.

In the evening of August 2 on Taiwan Arrived The speaker of the House of US representatives Nancy Pelosi - such a high -ranking American official for the first time in 25 years visited the island, which the PRC considers his territory. In fact, Taiwan has not submitted to Beijing since 1949, when there Sent During the Civil War, representatives of the Gomintan party during the Civil War. The visit by Pelosi, which was not part of the pre-announced route of her tour of Southeast Asia, caused the indignation of the Chinese authorities, who immediately announced the beginning of large-scale military exercises near Taiwan. The world media at that time wrote about the serious risk of escalation of the conflict up to an armed clash.

A few days later, Internet users, and behind them, the media began to distribute a screenshot in which one of the dedicated tweets in the Taiwan Foreign Ministry account was allegedly commented on by the President of Ukraine. It is claimed that Vladimir Zelensky wrote to the department: “Taiwan, we are with you!”, To which he received the answer: “Who are you?”

On August 5 and 6, dozens of publics on VKontakte published this screenshot. Among the largest of them is ""Great Russia - this country cannot be defeated!"(393,000 subscribers at the time of writing this analysis),"Russian Support || Russia || Putin"(323 000),"The Armed Forces of Novorossia (BCN)"(186 000),"In Makeevka? Donetsk | DPR | Summers from the front"(170 000),"Belgorod is the first"(167 000),"Yar"(153,000) and"For mother-Russia"(107 000). The picture was also published in Facebook*, Twitter And Telegram. On August 6, the Russian media began to actively share the screenshot: NTV, Lenta.ru, "Gazeta.ru","Fifth channel","Politorossia"And some other media.

Med Taiwan has repeatedly called a screenshot with a correspondence between the department and the President of Ukraine Fake. The first such statements also appeared on Twitter, in response to users who asked to comment on the situation. “We believe that this is a fake screenshot and that such misinformation should not spread,” the department wrote straightaway a few users. Note that this happened only two weeks later, on August 20.

On the same day, deputy press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taiwan confirmed Such an assessment to the local news agency CNA. This was reported by some Russian media, who previously spoke about the correspondence of Zelensky and the department on Twitter (for example, NTV, Lenta.ru And "Gazeta.ru"), As well as"RIA Novosti".

We did not find either in the account of Vladimir Zelensky, nor in the Taiwan Med account, presented in the screenshot. On August 4 and 5, the President of Ukraine wrote four times in this social network (twice in English and twice in Ukrainian), talking about the negotiations on food security with leaders Malawi And Guinea-Bisau. Judging by the profile of Zelensky, he (at least in recent months) does not answer at all to other people's tweets.

Our colleagues from Georgia And Taiwan They pay attention to the fact that there are two posts in the answers to the publication of the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry, Made User with the nickname @romanasame and completely coincide with the supposedly correspondence of the foreign policy and Vladimir Zelensky. The owner of the account @romanasame It seems Roman Korobkov, he started a Twitter blog in February 2014 and made less than ten tweets during this time: he posted the Materials of Channel twice, shared the links on the promotion from Yandex and Tinkoff Bank, and also spoke about his own successes at the same time very popular mobile game 2048. His last tweet (until August) was dated to March 2020.

According to foreign facts, the presence of tweets from Roman Korobkov proves that the screenshot with allegedly correspondence of Zelensky and the Taiwan Foreign Ministry has been falsified. The fact that it was the @romanasame account that showed interest in the post of the Taiwanese department, and then commented on his own tweet, looks at least very strange. However, these two publications date back in the early morning of August 6, while the first screenshot of “Correspondence” records in Telegram, which we were able to detect, appeared The day before in the channel "Rock ?? Z ".

In the post "Rock ?? Z ”contains a link supposedly leading to the correspondence of Zelensky and Taiwan Foreign Ministry on Twitter. Now, when crossing this link, the social network reports that "such a page does not exist." The archive copy of the page, which, claimed, was located at this address, is not in the Internet Archive and other storage facilities. At the same time, the link states that it leads to the tweet of the Taiwan Foreign Ministry itself, and not Zelensky (otherwise his usernime would be indicated in the exile), also both post The departments appearing in the screenshot are now available.

In the viral picture, there are also indirect traces of installation. For example, under the root post, part of the icon with the number of comments, as well as the lines separating the elements of the recording from each other, is erased. Moreover, the social network usually visually binds users' answers to their own and other people's tweets, connecting photos of the profile with a gray line - they are absent in the screenshot. Finally, Twitter’s entry can be relatively easily edited by changing the page code (previously “verified” already toldAs the tweet of the former Minister of Defense of Japan was forged using this method), and then the screenshots of several posts created in this way that never existed in reality, simply unite in a regular photo editor.

Thus, according to the aggregate of information available today, it is possible to say with a high degree of confidence that the screenshot with correspondence of Vladimir Zelensky and the Taiwan Foreign Ministry spread in August 2022 was forged. Firstly, the relevant statement issued the department itself. Secondly, the President of Ukraine does not respond to other people's posts on Twitter. The only “proof” of his communication with the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry is a screenshot doubts not confirmed by an archized links. Thirdly, the link that accompanies the screenshot in the earliest of the publications we discovered with the mention of the correspondence leads to the allegedly remote tweet of the Foreign Ministry, however, both records appearing in the viral picture are now available.

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

Photo on the cover: Office of the President of Ukraine