Is it true that foreign magazines published these covers dedicated to Zelensky and the Ukrainian church?

In April 2023, two covers of foreign satirical publications with caricatures on the theme of the church were distributed on the Internet, depicting the presidents of Ukraine and Russia, the Pope, Jesus and priests at the stake. We found out if these are real covers.

French magazine Charlie Hebdo

On April 5, the cover of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo appeared on the Internet. On it, the artists depicted the following scene: the embittered Jesus seems to be preparing to hit Vladimir Zelensky, but Vladimir Putin stops Christ with the words: “Don’t! We’ll figure it out ourselves!” It is reported that the cartoon is dedicated to the “persecution of the church” in Ukraine. This supposedly new cover of a popular satirical publication was reported by Telegram channels “DPR 🅉 info 🇷🇺"(54,000 views), "Russia 🇷🇺 Live" (51,000), "Far Away Kingdom" (17,000) and "Ne.Sugar Live"(13,000), VKontakte users (examples here, here, here, here And here), Twitter And "Zena"

In the upper left corner of the image being distributed, it is indicated that this is a special issue (numéro spécial) No. 1603 of April 5, 2023. According to archive covers on the magazine's official website, that day indeed was published recent issue, but it was number 1602, it did not have the numéro special mark, and on its cover drawn rabbi, imam, priest and lama, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron. Magazine No. 1603 came out only on April 12 and also had a different cover.

“Verified” studied the official accounts of the French publication in Twitter, Facebook* And Instagram* and did not find a viral cartoon there. In addition, at the bottom of the picture you can see the signature of the artist Juin, but in gallery There are no covers by this cartoonist for this issue.

Other technical errors also indicate a fake. For example, in the lower left corner on the side line there is not No. 1603, but a four-digit number starting with 15 (probably 1571 or 1591 - the third digit is difficult to recognize). On the viral cover, the barcode has a number 17158, while the official covers have 14057. In addition, in this case the fonts are different, which is especially evident in the numbers 3, 6 and 7, as well as the letter R.

The original source of the fake was the Telegram channel “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special Operation”, where is the post with the cover appeared April 5 at 13:13 Moscow time and received more than 13,000 views. The other day there for the first time published a fake cover of another French magazine showing Zelensky stealing Easter eggs from children.

Turkish LeMan Magazine

The second cover - this time of the Turkish satirical magazine LeMan - began to circulate on April 7. The cartoon shows the Pope, who, with the words “This is good,” watches Zelensky burn Orthodox priests. The caption above the drawing reads: “Militant Catholics. Who's next? The authors of some of the posts who posted the cover believe that this is a hint from the publication that, while proposing Easter reconciliation, Pope Francis “said nothing about the Nazi persecution of Orthodox priests.”

This cover appeared in Telegram channels "Zl⭕️th proof️"(136,000 views), "Staff Correspondent"(116,000), "Ostashko! Important"(104,000), "Gasparyan"(88,000), "Gossip"(84,000), "Ukraine.ru"(83,000), "Guard"(73,000), Putin TG Team (70,000) and "Nearestovich"(58,000), as well as on VKontakte (examples here, here, here, here And here) and Twitter (here, here And here).

On April 7, Chairman of the World Union of Old Believers Leonid Sevastyanov, citing a personal conversation with the pontiff reported TASS that Pope Francis proposed establishing a two-week truce in the war zone between Ukraine and Russia - it was supposed to begin on April 9 during the celebration of Easter and Easter Easter weeks by Catholics and Orthodox Christians. A note about this appeared on the news agency’s website at 10:44. The viral cover started going viral after about two hours. “Verified” did not find any official confirmation of such an initiative by the pope from the Vatican.

LeMan magazine is a weekly magazine whose latest issues arrive on sale on Wednesdays. However, the cover being distributed states that it is #1620 (12th issue of 2023) for April 6 (Thursday). We checked the social networks of the Turkish publication (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), as well as the official website and they didn’t find a similar picture with Francis and Zelensky there. On the contrary, we found No. 1620 for April 5 (Wednesday) with a different cover, which depicts Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

Like the fake Charlie Hebdo cover mentioned above, this one also has a different font from what the publication uses, as can be seen in most of the letters and numbers on the barcode and in the inscriptions above the magazine's logo.

This time, the earliest publication with a cover that Verified was able to find was appeared in the Telegram channel “Sheikh Tamir” (183,000 views) on April 7 at 12:24. This channel has repeatedly shared fakes about what is happening in Ukraine and at least three times was becoming primary source distribution misinformation on this topic.

The appearance of these two covers in early April 2023 is no coincidence - the conflict between the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) recently reached its peak. It became more active in the fall of 2022, when security forces held a series of searches in churches, monasteries and diocesan administrations, including the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Later Vladimir Zelensky instructed government to adopt a bill on “the impossibility of activities in Ukraine of religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation” - in theory, this could mean a ban on the activities of the UOC in the country. In March 2023, it became known that the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, under whose jurisdiction the Kiev Pechersk Lavra is located, announced on the termination of the agreement with the UOC on an indefinite lease, so representatives of the church must leave the Lavra after March 29. However, the clergy refused to do this, as a result of which the conflict flared up with renewed vigor in April.

Against the backdrop of the confrontation between the UOC and the authorities, many fakes have appeared. For example, in March “Verified” sorted it out unreliable reports from Russian media that the crosses on the Refectory Church of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra turned black after services of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), independent of the Moscow Patriarchate, were held in the monastery. In April on social networks spread a video allegedly proving that a UOC temple was burned in the Nikolaev region, although in fact the video shows a fire that happened about ten years ago in the Astrakhan region of Russia.

For months now, fake covers have been created in support of popular propaganda narratives (for example, that Ukraine is black hole, where the money of Western countries goes, or what Ukrainians - locusts, eating up the budgets of the EU and the USA) or on the topic of resonant news events (for example, meeting Vladimir Putin with Xi Jinping or call Russian prankster duo Vovan and Lexus to Polish President Andrzej Duda). It is noteworthy that at the end of 2022, after the Pope’s words about the Buryats and Chechens, the Internet also appeared two fake covers of LeMan and Charlie Hebdo magazines.

*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: collage “Verified” / social networks

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

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