In early November 2022, the media and Internet users distributed a leaflet in which the US Republican Party allegedly promised to abandon Kyiv’s military support. We checked the reliability of such publications.
November 8 in the USA passed Elections to Congress - candidates fought for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 out of 100 seats in the Senate. In the weeks preceding the vote, the important theme of the election campaign was material support for Ukraine. In mid -October, experts of the Kil Institute of World Economics Assessed The volume of assistance allocated to Kyiv Washington is $ 52.3 billion, including $ 15.2 billion directly financial support. Some representatives of the Republican Party Criticized Democrat President Joe Biden for lack of control over the use of these huge resources and disproportionately much attention to overseas problems in the relationship with internal (among them were primarily called record inflation and insufficient protection of the US southern border). On November 5, a member of the House of Representatives from Georgia Mardzhori Taylor Green at a rally in support of Donald Trump in Ayov directly She said: "Under Republicans, Ukraine will no longer receive a penny!"
On the morning of November 9, on the TV channel "Russia 24" Reported: “Republicans before the elections to Congress openly stated: in case of their victory, assistance to Ukraine will be stopped. In American social networks, photographs of leaflets appeared, which representatives of the Reds distributed to voters in the plots. It is written in them: "Say no military assistance to Ukraine." The boundaries of the United States are above all. The Republicans recalled Kyiv: with them, Ukraine will have to report for every dollar that democrats have already spent on it. ” The plot also demonstrated a photo of the leaflet. The night before, similar materials appeared in "Arguments and facts"And on the website of the TV channel"Tsargrad".
Also on November 8, posts about this leaflet appeared, according to the TGSTAT service, more than 800 Telegram channels. The largest of them is ""The ax live"(4.11 million subscribers at the time of writing this analysis),"Live broadcast"(3.38 million)," "Media Russia not Moscow"(2.76 million)," "Truthfulness"(1.3 million), Voblya (1.29 million), "Operation Z: Warrixes of Russian Spring"(1.15 million) and"Observer????"(1.04 million). TV presenters told their subscribers about the republican leaflet Vladimir Solovyov (1.39 million), Ruslan Ostashko (337 000) and Artyom Sheinin (180,000), writer Zakhar Prilepin (303,000), "militaryman" Yuri Kitten (433,000), as well as frequent speakers of Russian state media Scott Ritter (656,000) and Yakov Kedmi (150,000). Also, the information was distributed by users Facebook*, "VKontakte" Twitter And Livejournal.
Since the appeal set forth on the leaflet concerns foreign policy topics, it is logical to assume that it agitates to vote for the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives (November 8, 36 state governors and a number of campaigns at the local level) were also held in the country). In both chambers of the American parliament, they are not elected on party lists, but in single -mandate districts. The campaign materials that we managed to familiarize themselves with are containing At least The name and slogan of the candidate, As a maximum - His photo and quote or promise. Since in a large part of the districts they voted for representatives in both chambers of the parliament, the leaflets also often indicated which mandate the candidate claimed - this was supposed to help the voter not get confused on the site. With such introductory leaflets, which calls to vote for abstract Republicans, looks suspicious.
The wording given on the alleged campaign material also raises questions. It uses the expression of the UKRAINE MUST Account for EVERY SINGLAR DOLLAR the USA SPENT ON THEIR HEADS (the media and Telegram channels translate it approximately as “Ukraine will have to report for each dollar that the United States spent on it”). At the same time, we did not find in English dictionaries the expression to spend on somebody’s head (literally “spend on someone's head”)-it is not in the British Cambridge dictionary And Collins dictionarynot in American Merriam-Webster. The English native speakers interviewed by us reported that such phraseologism is unknown to them.
The pages outside the Russian -language segment of the Internet, which tells about this leaflet, are extremely few. Among them are English -speaking versions of the Russian portal "Military Review"And the advertising PMC" Wagner "of the resource Soldat.pro, some forums And aggregators posts from social networks. In social networks themselves (for example, in Twitter) You can find several dozen posts in foreign languages, some of them contain direct links to Russian pro-government Telegram channels. It should be noted that only a very small part of such publications was written by the Americans, where their authors (even if they write in English) indicate Russia, Germany, Italy, Great Britain and other countries as a place of residence.
However, this photograph, apparently, was really taken in America. On the background, part of the pharmacy sign (Pharmacy, the first five letters are visible in the picture), which Performed In the same style as the corresponding units of the Walmart network. At the same time, this picture is the only evidence that Internet users use to support their statements about the whole campaign of the US Republican Party. We were not able to find a single other photograph of the tested leaflet or at least a written mention that the American voter really received it.
The earliest publication using this only picture that we managed to find was posted in Telegram early on the morning of November 8. At 10:30 Moscow time, the corresponding post appeared in the channel "Tin of the day"(1.55 million subscribers). This anonymous channel was created in May 2017 and at first published “interesting facts” about the world around him, then he began to post videos with accidents, fights, scenes of cruelty to animals and other types of violence. Currently, the "tin" is also available on the userneum @zvoinaukraina.
Thus, hundreds of publications on a leaflet, which were supposedly massively distributed before the elections to parliament, representatives of the Republican Party in the United States are based on one photograph that first appeared in the Russian -speaking segment of the Internet. Although the picture, apparently, is indeed taken in the States, the leaflet depicted on it is significantly different from typical campaign materials, and in the inscription on it the expression that absent in English is used. American users of social networks in extremely few posts began to talk about this leaflet after it became viral in Russian-speaking Telegram channels. Moreover, in their publications there are neither other pictures, nor any details that could indicate that the leaflet was printed in a circulation of more than one copy and really spread to supporters of the Republicans in anticipation of the elections.
*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: Telegram
Most likely not true
- BBC. US Midterm Elections: Who are the So Important?
- CNN Politics. Live Election - House of Representatives Results
- Is it true that the American congressman called for destroying Russia because of Orthodoxy and traditional values?
- Did Mark Twain say: “If at least something depended on the elections, we would not have been allowed to participate in them”?
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