In April 2023, Russian and international media reported a curious incident that allegedly occurred with the American president and the British prime minister. We checked whether this description of the situation corresponds to reality.

April 16 in the program “News of the week“On the Rossiya channel, presenter Dmitry Kiselyov began his story about the recent visit of the US leader to Great Britain and Ireland with the following words: “Joe Biden was received in Northern Ireland this week. On Tuesday, the British Prime Minister personally came to meet the American president at the military airfield in Belfast. But Biden contemptuously dismissed Rishi Sunak, mistaking him for either a lackey or a porter. Instead of the prime minister, I ended up greeting some general.”

Previously "RIA Novosti“With reference to the British edition of the Daily Mail, it was reported: “The US President waved off the Prime Minister immediately after landing, many saw this as an insulting diplomatic gesture.” Wrote about this case Lenta.ru, "Russian newspaper", "Gazeta.ru", "News» and other media. The news gained great popularity on Telegram, where it was shared by the channels “Ax 18+"(1.7 million views at the time of writing this analysis), "Live broadcast"(636,000), "Operation Z: military correspondents of the Russian spring"(438,000), "Russia now"(314,000), "Telegram service news - Ukraine"(308,000), "V Z Vzglyad.ru"(274,000), "Media Russia is not Moscow"(232,000), "Newsach / Dvach"(217,000), "Truthfulness"(206,000). Many of these posts were accompanied by a 16-second video purporting to confirm the information being disseminated.

April 11 US President Joe Biden arrived to Northern Ireland on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the signing Belfast Agreement, which put an end to the protracted ethnopolitical conflict in this region. The second purpose of the visit was visit The Republic of Ireland and, in particular, County Mayo, where Biden's ancestors were from.

USAF Air Force One landed at Belfast International Airport (and not at all at a military airfield, as Kiselev claimed) at about 9 pm local time. The American president was met by three high-ranking Britons. The first of them, of course, was Rishi Sunak - chapter Government of the United Kingdom, of which Northern Ireland is a part. The second official is the Minister for Northern Ireland in Sunak's government, Christopher. Christopher Heaton-Harris. Finally, the third British representative at the airfield became Lord Lieutenant (i.e. personal representative of the British monarch) of the County of Antrim David McCorkell. It is he, wearing a characteristic cap with a red band, that we see in that part of the video where Biden seems to push Sunak away and approaches the man in uniform. And it was him who Dmitry Kiselev called “some kind of general.”

But let's take a look at how it all looks in a video from Sky News, from which, judging by the television company's logo, they cut out a short video that went viral on social networks. On April 12, a ten-minute video appeared on the Sky News YouTube channel. reportage from the scene of events. And its opening is largely consistent with the viral video: Biden walks down the ramp, then is shown giving Sunak a friendly pat on the arm for a second, after which he moves away as the American president salutes McCorkell.

However, there is more on the Sky News website video, which gives us a much more detailed look at the moment Biden met with the British delegation. This applies to both the long descent down the ramp and the four-second episode during which Biden shakes hands with the British Prime Minister, manages to say a couple of phrases to him, and only then his gaze turns to the Lord Lieutenant. Events develop similarly in the video. The Sun And The Independent.

Thus, the reason for the appearance of the “scandalous” news was the not very successful editing of the video from Sky News, which was then misinterpreted in social networks and the media. Note that one of the main distributors (3.7 million views, 11,000 retweets) of a 16-second video with an incorrect comment among Western users was a pro-Russian Twitter account Spriter, which had previously was becoming “hero” of “Verified” analysis. In Russian-language Telegram channels, the news spread even earlier, including with a 20-second video with the BBC logo, from which a similar false conclusion can be drawn.

Cover photo: Flickr/social media