In mid-November, publications appeared on social networks and Telegram channels about a German driver who wrote on a bus that the President of Ukraine is a black hole. The proof was a video from a local TV channel. We have verified the accuracy of this news and video.
November 17, 2022 Telegram channel «Solovyov" (301,000 views at the time of writing this text) shared a channel recording "Yakemenko”(323,000) with the following content: “A bus with the inscription “Zelensky is a black hole” rode around Berlin. This bus apparently became something of a local landmark and even accidentally ended up in a German media report. True, the driver was fined for this prank. But nothing, a small price to pay for the opportunity to have your own position! It's funny that in German "black hole" is "schwarz loch" (in fact "Schwarzes sucker". — Ed.). Now I want to know what the inscription “Zelensky is a black hole” will look like in all the languages of the world." The 22-second viral video shows a woman giving a commentary to a TV channel in German. In the middle of the video (at the 0:13 mark) in the background you can see a passing white bus, on which it is written in German: “Zelensky is a black hole" (Selenskyj ist ein schwarzes Loch).
Similar publications are posted in other Telegram channels, including Voblya (180,000 views), "Russia now"(320,000), "Scott Ritter on Telegram"(226,000), "News"(20,000), "Anonymous from USA"(15,000), etc. On VKontakte this story was reported in the public pages "Solovyov live"(15,000 views), "Donbass today" (11,000), "Armed Forces of Novorossiya (VSN)"(16,000), "Donetsk VKontakte"(16,000), "Private enterprise Primorye» (7,000), etc. Posted video and on Vladimir Solovyov’s channel on Rutube.
At the same time, sometimes a German-language video is distributed with the following Russian subtitles: “Yesterday I couldn’t take a normal shower because my husband came home from work early and drained all the hot water. I can’t afford to warm the water again. Today I want to come home first so I can take a shower, and here you are with your questions.” For example, a video with such a translation was also distributed in Telegram channels “Militia reports"(21,000 views), "Political scavenger" (19,000) and "Kherson region news"(5,000), on VKontakte (examples here, here And here), as well as in Twitter.
Let's start with the fact that the woman in the video is not talking at all about what is written in the Russian subtitles. It was actually about nuclear power and renewable energy, not hot water issues. “Because electricity output from nuclear power plants cannot be easily varied, the more electricity there is in the grid, the more renewable energy sources are crowded out. As long as it doesn't cause trouble. Everyone who advocates extending the operation of nuclear power plants in energy systems without flexibility, at the same time advocates... (recording ends. - Ed.),” the video says.
In the lower right corner of the video is the logo of the Telegram channel “Nose”, where on November 18 for the first time appeared video with Russian subtitles, collecting 25,000 views. It also added the detail that the driver’s fine for the inscription about Vladimir Zelensky and the black hole was €200. According to the description, the channel "Nose" positions your content as a satire about the current political agenda, and in one of the posts with a video in another channel noted, that “translation subtitles are made for humor.” However, in most publications of public pages and channels where the video with subtitles was posted, there are no notes about humor and satire, so users who do not speak German could be misled.
What about the bus and its driver?
In none of the materials we found did the authors name the allegedly fined driver, nor did they contain any other details of what happened: for example, the date the report was filmed or the fine was issued, the name of the street, district, TV channel or transport company. However, along with the video, a screenshot of stories allegedly from the Instagram* account of the German newspaper ND is being distributed. We checked website publication, as well as three of his accounts on social networks (in Twitter, Facebook*, Instagram) and could not find any evidence that the newspaper had published such a publication. Moreover, we did not find any mention of a bus with a similar inscription and a fine for it in any English- or German-language media. It was also not possible to find any eyewitness accounts or other photos and videos of the bus, in addition to the viral video.
Since we were unable to see the logos on the side of the microphone to determine the name of the TV channel, we decided to find out the woman's name using a reverse image search. She turned out to be a German lawyer and deputy Nina Scheer, representative faction of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the Bundestag on climate protection and energy policy. We checked Scheer's official accounts on three social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) and on her Facebook they found a post for October 17, 2022, which begins in these words: “I explained in detail to Welt the position of the SPD faction in the Bundestag regarding the debate on the continued operation of nuclear power plants. Overall, the top priority should be more efficient use of renewable energy sources. There is no reason to extend the operating life of the Emsland NPP.”
Also attached to this publication by Scheer is a screenshot from the same report, which allegedly accidentally hit a bus with an inscription about the Ukrainian president, as well as a link to a website where you can look her interview. As you can see, on microphone is the name of the German TV channel Welt. Apparently, in the version that went viral on the RuNet, the name of the channel was erased to make it difficult to find the original source.
In the video, published on the Welt website on October 17, the moment with the passing bus begins at the 3:17 mark, but there is no inscription about the black hole on it. Moreover, in the place where words about Zelensky should supposedly be, nothing is written at all. The logo was also replaced companies, engaged in passenger transportation in Berlin, since in the original the bus is written in red and black letters and numbers Busmobil24, and in the viral video the logo is a pink rectangle with something written in white letters (we were not able to examine it in more detail).
We have not established the exact original source of the fake video, but the earliest publications that we found were from the Shkvarka news community: November 17 at 15:50 Moscow time Telegram and at 16:20 in "VKontakte" The posts clarify that information about the bus and the fine was sent by an anonymous subscriber.
The editors of “Verified” have more than once analyzed fabricated videos and images as part of the narrative that in Europe and the United States Vladimir Zelensky is allegedly compared to a black hole. Thus, reports have already been circulated on the RuNet that an American TV channel accidentally showed Zelensky's speech instead of recording the sounds of a black hole, German satirical magazine released cover on this topic, in Poland appeared graffiti with money-eating Zelensky, and Serbian students offered name the black hole after the Ukrainian president, but all these stories turned out to be fakes.
Thus, there is no mention in any authoritative foreign media of a bus with the required inscription, or of the driver fined for it. And the only evidence of this story is an edited video, the original of which was released a month before the first publications about the inscription on the bus appeared on the Internet, and a screenshot of a German newspaper story, the authenticity of which could not be confirmed.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: screenshot “Verified”
Fake
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