A photo of Mateusz Morawiecki went viral on social networks, allegedly paying tribute to Stepan Bandera by laying flowers at his monument and calling him a friend of Poland. We have verified the authenticity of this photo and the quote from the Polish politician.
At the end of November 2022, a photograph was distributed in Telegram channels showing two men bowing their heads near the monument to Stepan Bandera, one of the main ideologists Ukrainian nationalism. The flag of Poland is placed on the sleeve of one of the people, and a wreath in the colors of the Ukrainian flag is attached to the monument. According to numerous publications, the photo shows Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during his trip to Kyiv. In addition, along with the photo, an alleged quote from him also diverges: “The memory of this great warrior will forever remain in our hearts. Bandera has always been a great friend of the Polish people."
Posts with this photo and quote can be found in the following channels: “Signal"(114,000 views), Putin TG Team (87,000), "Boiling water"(77,000), Tarik Nezalejko (70,000), "Ne.Sugar" (55,000, deleted), "Tynu40k Goblina (oper.ru)"(37,000, deleted), "Coachman" (35,000), "Gasparyan"(33,000, deleted), "Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation"(12,000). Similar publications are posted on VKontakte - in public pages (examples here, here And here) and on the personal pages of social network users (here, here And here), as well as on Twitter (here, here And here) and on the websites of some media (here And here).
Sometimes in posts approved, that the photo shows not Morawiecki, but “another Polish functionary.”
Mateusz Morawiecki indeed came to Kyiv: his visit took place on November 26, when in Ukraine noted annual Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holodomor (fourth Saturday in November). About the trip of the Polish Prime Minister wrote and Russian media, while pointing out that one of the first points of the minister’s visit program was the laying of flowers at the monument to the victims of the mass famine of 1932–1933 on the territory of Ukraine. In December 2022, the European Parliament admitted The Holodomor was a genocide of the Ukrainian people, during which several million people died.
Photos directly next to the memorial can be found at websites foreign media, and in the official Twitter account Prime Minister of Poland. Besides, available and a video recording of the process of laying flowers. The photographs show that Morawiecki visited the Memorial Sign to the Victims of the Holodomor, which located on Mikhailovskaya Square in Kyiv.
As for the viral photo, it was changed in a graphics editor. This can be seen at least from the highly blurred contours of people’s figures. In addition, we found the original unedited photo of Morawiecki with his companion (we have not identified him) wearing the same clothes and poses as in the viral photo. To create a fake, they were mirrored and cut out from the original image. Below is a comparison of part of the real photo with the fake.
We uploaded the falsified photo to the TinEye image search service and discovered, that the monument to Stepan Bandera that interests us is located not in Kyiv, but in the village of Kozovka in the Ternopil region of Ukraine. Distance from this locality to the Ukrainian capital amounts to more than 400 km. An original photo of the monument from the same angle and with the same wreath as in the photograph with supposedly Morawiecki, posted on Wikipedia at least as early as 2011. The website also states that the author took the photo in 2009.
Below is a comparison of part of the Wikipedia photo with the viral image.
We could not find Morawiecki’s words that “Bandera has always been a great friend of the Polish people” in the authoritative media and official accounts of the prime minister on social networks. Our colleagues from publications Correctiv And Konkret 24 They also found no evidence that Morawiecki had ever said anything similar.
In all the publications we found, a translucent inscription with a link was superimposed on the fake photo t.me/waltp38. Waltp38 is the username of the Telegram channel “Insatiable Midshipman” (3,900 subscribers). Publication with a photo of Morawiecki at the Bandera monument and with a corresponding quote appeared there on November 26 at 16:08 Moscow time. Previously "Verified" already wrote about this channel, when it became the primary source of a photoshopped photo with Vladimir Zelensky and allegedly his autobiographical book called “My Struggle.” Judging by the posts in The Insatiable Midshipman, the author takes a pro-Russian position and regularly publishes photomontages ridiculing Ukrainian and Western politicians. In this case, the description of the channel reads: “All coincidences are random! Everything that is written here is just my value judgment!”
Thus, the original image is a montage of two different photographs. The Prime Minister of Poland did not lay flowers at the monument to Stepan Bandera and did not pronounce the quote that went viral on social networks that Bandera is “a friend of the Polish people.” The primary source of the fabricated photos and quotes is a satirical Telegram channel.
Cover photo: Waltp38
Satirical news
- Is it true that the President of Poland knelt in front of the monument to UPA fighters?
- Is it true that the grandfather of Polish President Andrzej Duda was a fascist punisher?
- Is it true that Ukraine asked Poland to rename one of the streets of Warsaw in honor of Stepan Bandera?
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