During Xi Jinping's visit to Russia, a paradoxical statement allegedly made by John Kirby went viral that the United States would not allow Zelensky to accept any peace plans proposed by the Chinese delegation, since Ukraine is a completely sovereign state. We checked to see if this quote is correct.
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived to Moscow for negotiations with Vladimir Putin on March 20, 2023. On the same day, a screenshot of a tweet from American political analyst and radio host Garland Nixon was circulated on RuNet: working to the Russian state media outlet Radio Sputnik, broadcasting in Washington. The full text of his post reads as follows: "Breaking news: White House spokesman John Kirby said that because Ukraine is a free, independent and fully sovereign state, the United States will not allow President [Vladimir] Zelensky to accept any peace plans proposed by the Chinese delegation in Moscow."
In many pro-Russian Telegram channels, the screenshot was accompanied by the caption: “Ukraine is a “fully independent state” to which the United States prohibits a truce.” Among the channels that disseminated the statement from the screenshot are: “Russia now"(331,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Release the Kraken!"(138,000), "Uncle Slava"(135,000 at the time the post was deleted), "Reports by Yuri Podolyaki"(131,000), "Ostashko! Important"(110,000), "Yakov Kedmi"(107,000), "Breaking news" (100,000) and "Russia 2.0"(64,000). Also, messages about Kirby’s words spread across VKontakte (examples here, here And here), "Zen"and by some news sites.
March 20 Garland Nixon really published a tweet that went viral about Kirby's statement, which takes position of strategic communications coordinator at the White House National Security Council. At the time of this writing, the radio host’s post has received more than 1 million views. In his tweet, Nixon did not say where and when the words of interest to us were spoken, and there were no links to the original source. Verified was unable to find any public speeches, interviews, or publications by Kirby with this quote.
On the eve of Chairman Xi's arrival in the Russian Federation, March 19, 2023, Kirby gave interview with host Mike Emanuel on the Fox News Sunday morning show, in which the conversation touched on the upcoming Russian-Chinese negotiations. During the conversation, the coordinator reportedthat the White House will monitor Putin’s meeting with Xi and considers potential calls for a truce as part of the Chinese leader’s visit unacceptable:
But we have already said and will repeat today that if any call for a ceasefire is made as a result of this meeting, it will be unacceptable. Because all this will lead to, Mike, is the ratification of Russia's conquests by today. This will only give Putin more time to re-equip, retrain, re-man and try to plan new offensive actions at a time of his choosing. We hope, and we have said this before, that President Xi will call and speak with President Zelensky. Because we believe that the Chinese need to know the Ukrainian point of view.
Apparently, Nixon distorted exactly this statement of the White House representative, since 36 minutes later in the replay under the original post he added excerpt from Kirby's Fox News interview with the following caption: "Ahead of Putin-Xi meeting, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby says any 'call for a ceasefire' in Ukraine is 'unacceptable.'"
In their analysis of these fake words by Kirby, German fact checkers from the publication Correctiv reminded, What is this not the first times when Nixon circulates made-up quotes ridiculing the US and other Western countries. For example, in January 2023 he wrote about Joe Biden’s allegedly leaked words about how the United States is stealing German industry and how the American president personally hates the Germans. In the same month he toldthat Chancellor Olaf Scholz received a message from the ghost of Adolf Hitler, and in early February reportedthat Putin’s passport was found near the site of the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion. Moreover, all these tweets were accompanied by the tag “Breaking News,” and among his sources, Nixon named the names of long-dead comedians George Carlin And Lenny Bruce.
The most notable incident occurred in mid-February 2023, when Nixon published a tweet with a quote from Biden saying that the US allegedly has a plan to destroy Taiwan. How reports fact-checking site Polygraph.info, on the Chinese platform Weibo messages about Biden's words dialed more than 150 million views, Nixon’s tweet was commented on by Taiwanese politicians, and the official representative of the Chinese Foreign Ministry asked USA explain. Soon Nixon recorded video entitled "Why my tweet about 'destroying Taiwan' went viral" where told, that his posts marked “Breaking News” are satire. “Anyone who has followed me for a long time knows that I engage in satire and constantly write “breaking news” with leaks from insiders in the White House, the Kremlin, etc. These tweets are one of the things that made me famous,” Nixon explained.
Moreover, back in January he released this “breaking news”: “No matter how absurdly satirical your tweet is, there will always be one brainless idiot who will ask you for the “source””, and in description Nixon's profile is labeled "purveyor of satire."
Cover photo: screenshot “Verified”
Satirical news
- Is it true that the Pentagon proposed suspending Lithuania’s membership in NATO?
- Is it true that Ukrainian statehood was created by Vladimir Lenin?
- Is it true that George Bush considered the loss of Ukraine a good thing for the Russians, and called Jimmy Carter a “village fool”?
- Is it true that a French newspaper published a cover showing Zelensky looking through binoculars while sitting on the corpses of Ukrainian soldiers?
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