Is it true that the Ukrainian anthem was played at a dog show in the USA?

On February 24, 2023, reports appeared on the Internet that the Ukrainian anthem was used during the awards ceremony at an American dog show. We decided to check the authenticity of the video recording presented as evidence.

The viral video lasts 34 seconds. and, according to the logo that appears in the frame, is a portion of the broadcast of the American Kennel Club (AKC) National Championships. The national anthem of Ukraine plays from the first second of the video and ends at the 26th, after which the announcer announces the imminent presentation of the prize for fourth place. At the same time, in some publications talking about the incident, it saysthat the anthem was played before the start of the exhibition.

Since February 24, posts about this video have appeared in numerous Telegram channels. For example, in the channel of TV presenter Ruslan Ostashko the recording was posted twice (121,000 And 102,000 views respectively at the time of writing this analysis), and then mentioned the use of the anthem at the exhibition is among the main events of the day. Other channels that posted the video include “Dmitry Nicotin"(297,000), "Putin on Telegram"(264,000), "Uncle Slava"(123,000), "Breaking news"(115,000), "Tough of the day"(104,000), Fox News Russia (104,000), "Kot Kostyan - official channel"(100,000), "Yakov Kedmi"(87,000), "War history weapons"(85,000), Putin TG Team (83,000), "Rita Ebzeeva" (84,000) and "Yulia Vityazeva"(40,000). Authors of Rogandar News (51,000 views) like this explained meaning of the video: “We can name a lot of evidence that the leaders of the United States and European countries are going overboard with “love and respect” for Ukraine (of course, we are only talking about “showing off” in front of the residents of their countries). Apparently, the organizers thought that this was the best thing a dog should hear before a performance. At such moments, you just want to look into the head of the one who came up with all this and proposed it. But most likely we won’t see anything there, not even a brain.” According to the service TGStat, in Telegram at the time of writing this analysis, the total number of views of all posts about the video with the anthem was more than 3 million.

On February 25, notes about the video with the anthem appeared in Russian media, including “RIA Novosti», "Radio Sputnik", portal "Ukraine.ru", "Moscow region today", newspaper "Sight" And "People's news" Moreover, some of them noted that some commentators considered this move by the organizers as “banter” on the part of the Americans, dissatisfied with excessive support for Ukraine. The video also went viral on VKontakte (examples here, here And here) And Twitter.

According to official website American Kennel Club, in recent years all of the organization's national championships have been held in December. At the same time, for some reason, a video with the Ukrainian anthem appeared on the Internet only on February 24, on the anniversary of the start of the so-called special operation on the territory of Ukraine. In 2022 event passed With 17 By December 18 in Orlando, Florida. “Verified” watched the award ceremonies for both days of the exhibition and did not find any footage from the viral video in these broadcasts.

The viral video begins (0:00) from a general shot of the participants, stands with spectators, and camera operators included in the frame. At the same time, on the decoration in the center and on the sides you can see the inscription Sporting Group (“Sports Group”) - so called a canine category that includes, for example, the Golden Retriever and the Irish Setter. Then with 0:14 to 0:19 judge shown in this category - Thomas H. Bradley III, and at the mark 0:20 the long shot demo begins again and ends at 0:28. At the end of the video, representatives of the sponsor, the feed manufacturer Royal Canin, are shown with an award and a check - on it, despite the not the highest quality of the recording, you can see the inscription National Owner-Handled Series Best in Show and the number 2018.

We checked the broadcasts of the 2018 exhibition and found the required fragments in records the first day of the event. The start of the viral video corresponds to the moment at the mark 4:17:14, however, in the video on the official channel of the American Kennel Club, the Ukrainian anthem is not heard: only the voices of the announcers and the exclamations of the audience are heard in the background. Moreover, not only the musical accompaniment is different, but also the video sequence. If you compare the viral video frame by frame with the official recording, only the first 19 seconds will match, and then the editing differs. For example, a viral video is missing more than 20 seconds, which in the original recording comes with 4:17:34 to 4:17:57. And the scene with the sponsors and the check is taken from a completely different moment of the ceremony (in the official broadcast it can be found at the mark 19:33), which is why the check shows the National Owner-Handled Series category rather than Sporting Group.

Please note that the video attached above was posted on YouTube on December 16, 2018 and is a recording of a live broadcast. In other words, it could not have been edited after the video of the anthem went viral in February 2023.

We found the earliest publication about the inclusion of the Ukrainian anthem at a dog show using keywords in the Telegram channel “Sheikh Tamir"(144,000 views), where the post with the video appeared on February 24, 2023 at 15:59 Moscow time. Earlier, the same channel began distributing other fake videos. For example, it was reported that an American TV channel allegedly showed speech President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky instead of a funny video with a dog and what’s new clip singer Madonna seems to knock a pawn in the colors of the Ukrainian flag off the chessboard. Both recordings turned out to be montages.

Thus, reports about the use of the Ukrainian anthem during a dog show in the United States are not true. The video used as evidence was edited together from various fragments of the 2018 video, with the anthem overdubbed over the original audio.

Cover photo: screenshot “Verified” / American Kennel Club

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

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