Is it true that a Spanish magazine published these covers with Zelensky and NATO leaders?

In the fall of 2022, Internet users distributed two covers of the satirical publication El Jueves, allegedly dedicated to the President of Ukraine and the heads of Western states. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.

One of the covers shows a screen showing a video message from Russian President Vladimir Putin, which is being watched by the leaders of Western countries. Among them are, for example, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky (on his left shoulder there is a red bandage, apparently referring to the symbols of the Nazi party) and US President Joe Biden (he is drawn in a diaper). Western leaders are depicted urinating, with urine spilling onto the floor to form the letters OTAN, the Spanish abbreviation used to represent NATO. “Macho can’t be stopped,” reads the caption to the picture.

On September 23, news about the appearance of such a cartoon in El Jueves was published, in particular, “Federal News Agency", "People's news", "Political expert" And "PolitRussia"(all of them are part of the Patriot media group, related with an entrepreneur and founder PMC "Wagner" by Evgeniy Prigozhin). On Telegram, the image was shared by dozens of channels, including the largest “Truthfulness"(1.3 million subscribers at the time of writing this analysis), "Russia now" (1.15 million), "? Army? 18+?"(968,000), "Putin on Telegram" (885,000) and "Bullet» (803 000), as well as media manager channels Tina Kandelaki (291,000) and TV presenters Ruslana Ostashko (338,000) and Artyom Sheinin (179,000). This cover can also be found on user pages Facebook*, Twitter, "VKontakte", LiveJournal And Pikabu.

Another cover, which began to circulate in mid-October, is dedicated directly to the President of Ukraine. It depicts Vladimir Zelensky surrounded by missiles aimed at him, with his tongue hanging out and white liquid flowing around his mouth. The caption on the picture reads: “Russian rocket bukkake” (the word “bukkake” is happening from Japanese "to splash water" and is used to refer to the practice in group sex in which the participants in sexual intercourse ejaculate on the face or other part of the body of one of them). This picture was not widely published by the media, but it was widely distributed on social networks. It was also shared by users Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, "VKontakte", And LiveJournal.

On the website of the satirical weekly presented all issues of the magazine for 2022. On their covers, immediately under the name El Jueves, the number (for example, 2.365) and the inscription “Año XLV” - “45th year [of the magazine’s existence]” are indicated. On the cover with the image of Vladimir Putin and the leaders of NATO countries there is such a signature - it is stated that this is number 2.366, on the cover about the “Russian missile bukkake” there is no such data at all.

Judging by the card index on the publication’s website, the actual number is 2.366 was dedicated the results of the recent early parliamentary elections in Italy. The cover was “adorned” by the leader of the victorious far-right Brothers of Italy party, Giorgia Meloni, who a month later headed government of the country. The barcode in the lower left corner of the cover, which was circulated on social networks, shows the numbers 02365. This corresponds to the number 2.365, which went on sale a week before the Meloni episode; in turn, its cover is dedicated to rising electricity bills.

Since the barcode number of real magazines always corresponds to the number of a particular issue, from this data we can also determine when, according to social network users, the cover about the “Russian rocket bukkake” was published. Surprisingly, in this case, the barcode also contains the numbers 02365. Let us recall that El Jueves issue number 2.365 was presented on the magazine’s Twitter on September 20, while the cover dedicated to Zelensky began to circulate on social networks about three weeks later. In fact, in those days it came out special number 2.368, dedicated to the history of Spain.

We found the initial posts in which these two covers appeared in the Russian-language segment of Telegram. Earliest publication known to us of a cover featuring Vladimir Putin and Western leaders posted in the relatively small channel “Telegrablya” on September 23 at 11:49 Moscow time, but the picture became viral after appeared after an hour of post in the channel “Antifishki | Current news channel”, which received almost 140,000 views. In turn, the cover about “Russian rocket bukkake” was for the first time published October 11 at 12:05 Moscow time in the “Putin on Telegram” channel.

In recent months, drawings passed off as covers of other satirical publications have been repeatedly distributed on the Russian-language segment of the Internet. For example, since July, at least four covers of the famous French magazine Charlie Hebdo have been published on social networks, to which its editors have nothing to do. Three of these images show the President of Ukraine was presented in the form of a dog, another author dedicated power outage in Kyiv. In October, a picture was also circulated that hinted at the involvement of the White House in the explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipeline and allegedly decorated cover of American magazine Mad.

Correction as of December 29, 2022: The Verified editors have discovered Telegram channels in which covers appeared earlier than those indicated in the original version of this analysis (it can be found at link), and made appropriate changes to the text.

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

Cover photo: Twitter

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

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