In March 2023, a photograph of a 3D drawing on one of the streets of the capital of Spain appeared on the Internet. This street art depicts the President of Ukraine as an insatiable insect. We have verified the authenticity of the viral photo.
The photo being circulated shows graffiti that depicts Vladimir Zelensky as a locust eating a bag of euros. In this he is helped by other insects with wings in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Also visible in the center of the photo is the alleged author of the street art: he is sitting on his knees in dark clothes, his face is hidden, and he is holding a chalk in his hands.
Publications about this graffiti began to appear en masse on Telegram on March 10. Among the channels that posted the photo are “What happened?"(123,000 views at the time of writing), Putin TG Team (82,000), "Russia 2.0" (59,000), "New 🅉 Ukraine" (35,000), "Emergency / Crimea" (20,000) and "Teledno"(15,000). The media also paid attention to the photo with street art: “News", "Arguments and facts", "Federal News Agency" And "Evening Moscow" All of these resources claim that the authors captioned the photo as follows: “These locusts continue to devour Western money in exchange for the lives of thousands of innocent people. We must crush this creature as quickly as possible before it devours the entire crop.” Another signature option is presented on the website “Economy today": "These locusts continue to devour Europe's finances." VKontakte users also talked about the photo (examples here, here And here) And "Zena"
The primary source of the viral street art photo is the social network of the Typical Optical collective, which calls itself a group of artists from Poland. There the picture was published on the evening of March 9 - in Instagram*-account with 352 subscribers the photo was posted in the form of nine separate publications, and the whole image appeared in stories and Telegram-channel. The signature is the same everywhere: “These locusts continue to devour Europe’s finances.” The signature option that was reported in some media, “Verified,” could not be found. According to geotags and hashtags, the photo was taken in Madrid.
Typical Optical are regular guests of Russian pro-government media, Telegram channels and bloggers who talked about all their work. In total, “Polish artists” allegedly painted seven graffiti on the streets of different cities in Europe and the United States, and all of them were quite similar: Zelensky in the image pimple, feces, a couple of times in the form locusts And three times in the image black hole. All of them were analyzed by “Verified”, and in all cases we came to the conclusion that those 3D drawings never appeared on real sidewalks, and the pictures were changed in photo editors. In addition, incorrect locations were indicated in geotags several times.
We have established that the photo actually shows a pedestrian area in the Spanish capital. Thanks to the inscription with the name of the medical organization (Organización Médica Colegial de España) on the roof of the white building in the background “Verified”, it was possible to calculate the exact place: pedestrian sidewalk near house number 7 on Plaza de las Cortes.
Notably, one of Typical Optical's previous locust graffiti was also allegedly made in Madrid, and in the same Cortez Square. The corresponding photograph was published back in December 2022. The distance between the places from the first and second photos can be overcome on foot in just a couple of minutes. We compared the clothes worn by the “artists” captured in both photographs and came to the conclusion that they were the same person. Based on this, it is very likely that the photographs were taken on the same day. In this case, if this street art installation had actually been created, it is unlikely that the authors would not have shared this photo for several months.
This isn't the first time Typical Optical has done stock photos. For example, in November 2022 they reported, that they painted graffiti in Paris, and in February 2023 published photo of the drawing supposedly from Brussels. In fact, both photographs were taken in the suburbs of the French capital, and then graffiti was applied to them using Photoshop. Also in January 2023 Typical Optical shared a couple of photographs supposedly from London and Berlin, but in fact it turned out that in both cases the shooting location was Zurich (and, apparently, it took place at the same time).
Plaza Cortes is located in the very center of the Spanish capital, next to it located the building of the Congress of Deputies of Spain, and nearby - Prado Museum. Thousands of locals and tourists pass there every day, but it was not possible to find a single photo of the graffiti from a different angle on the Internet. A similar thing happened with the first 3D drawing of locusts in Madrid, and correspondents Radio France Internationale and agencies AFP then they interviewed employees of nearby companies, and they had not seen or heard about such street art with Zelensky.
If we do not take into account Typical Optical's posts on March 9, the earliest entry we found about the second Madrid graffiti appeared in the Telegram channel "Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation"(13,000 views), where the photo was published on March 10 at 13:01 Moscow time. In the same channel was and the earliest post with the first Madrid graffiti. In addition, “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special Operation" - original source a fake cover of the American satirical magazine Humor Times, on which the Ukrainian president was also depicted as a locust.
At the time of writing this analysis, only nine segments of the second photo from Madrid have been published on the Typical Optical Instagram, and all previous photos have been deleted. Apparently, the authors are cleaning up their tracks after Meta* algorithms, based on checks by independent fact checkers mark their publications as false information.
Thus, the viral photo of graffiti with Zelensky in the form of locusts is the eighth work of the Typical Optical team, whose previous seven photographs, according to analyzes of “Verified” and other independent fact-checking projects, turned out to be photo fakes. There is not a single photograph on the Internet where the new 3D drawing would be shown in the process of creation or at least from a different angle, and there are also no eyewitness accounts. In addition, the new Madrid photo was taken in almost the same place and, very likely, at the same time, where the photo published by Typical Optical back in December 2022 was taken. However, then surveys of workers in nearby offices and establishments showed that no one had seen or heard about graffiti with caricatures of Zelensky.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: @typicaloptical
Fake
- Is it true that a monument to Zelensky was erected in Milan in the form of a nose with white powder?
- Is it true that foreign magazines published these covers dedicated to Zelensky and Ukraine?
- Is it true that in Berlin a bus with the inscription “Zelensky is a black hole” accidentally ended up in a TV report about the energy crisis?
- Is it true that a Spanish magazine published these covers with Zelensky and NATO leaders?
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