In April 2023, on RuNet, the President of Ukraine was accused of ignorance of geography: he allegedly believes that the Caspian Sea is located on the territory of Belarus, as he stated in his address. We have verified the authenticity of the video.

A short video is circulating on social networks where Vladimir Zelensky says: “I want to address the citizens of Belarus today. We will find you all. Each of you will be responsible for these blows. And if anyone thinks that they will escape responsibility by saying that “that was the order,” you are mistaken. And you won’t hide anywhere - not on the shores of the Caspian Sea, over which your missiles are launched...” After Zelensky’s words, an excerpt from the Soviet film “Gentlemen of Fortune” is shown, where the cruelty of one of the characters was discussed. The authors of many publications with this video wished the Ukrainian president to learn geography. “We hope that the Belarusian Navy will take this threat into account and take their ships out of harm’s way, to their home ports. But do Belarusians know that they have the Caspian Sea?” — ironically said in the Telegram channel Rogandar News (53,000 views at the time of writing this analysis).

Similar posts appeared in the channels Tarik_News (213,000 views), "First People's"(154,000), "Uncle Slava" (151,000), "Sheikh Tamir" (146,000), "Yakov Kedmi"(113,000), "Belarusian security officer"(112,000), "What happened?"(99,000), "Cartridge"(96,000), "Ukraine.ru"(82,000), Putin TG Team (77,000) and Pravda.ru (12,000). In addition, the video was widely distributed in “VKontakte", Twitter and Facebook (examples here, here And here), and also appears in "Zene"and on somenewswebsites.

Video: social networks

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth. He washes the shores of five countries: Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan - Belarus is not among them. Technically, in the viral recording, Zelensky did not claim that Belarus is in the Caspian Sea; the Ukrainian president allegedly only spoke about launching Belarusian missiles from the shores of the Caspian Sea. But did he really say this?

Using a search using the keywords “Verified”, I found out that with a similar speech Zelensky spoke back in the summer of 2022. IN video based on the results of June 26, 2022 (after the start of a full-scale war, the Ukrainian leader publishes such videos every day) he appealed to some Russian military personnel:

Firstly, all pilots, dispatchers, technicians and other people who ensure the launch of missiles in Ukraine must understand: we will find you all. Each of you will be responsible for these blows. And if anyone thinks that they will escape responsibility by saying that “that was the order,” you are mistaken. When your missiles hit residential buildings, these are war crimes. Judgment is what awaits you all. And you will not hide anywhere: neither on the shores of the Caspian Sea, over which your missiles are launched, nor in Belarus - nowhere.

Immediately after this started A separate appeal to the residents of Belarus:

And separately, I want to address today the citizens of Belarus. To people - both civilians and those in uniform. You are being drawn into a war. And even more active than it was in February and the spring months. The Kremlin has already decided everything for you: your lives are worth nothing to them. But you are not slaves or cannon fodder. You don't have to die. And you have the power not to let anyone decide for you what awaits you next. I know that the people of Belarus support Ukraine. They support us. Definitely us, not the war. And that is why the Russian leadership wants to drag you, all Belarusians, into a war, wants to sow hatred between us. A lot now depends on the ordinary people of Belarus, and I know that you may not participate in this war. Your lives belong only to you, and only to you, and not to someone in the Kremlin.

Zelensky's official address

Thus, Zelensky’s viral appeal was assembled from several fragments of one of his speeches last year.

Now regarding the original source. Most publications used video from the TikTok account of Yulia Kukharenko (@yuliyakukharenko) - there's a video appeared April 7, 2023 and received less than 1,900 views. TikTok does not show the exact time of publication, but the page code indicates Unix time, which can be translated into Moscow. So “Verified” found out that Kukharenko posted the video at 19:59:58. However, this is not the earliest video. While searching for posts with the same video on Telegram, we found a post in the channel “Tata Medvedeva", published back on April 6 at 22:29, but this is not the original either. We discovered that TikTok account Nina (@meggxs) posted viral video, which received more than 930,000 views, on April 6 at 0:32:21, after which on this social network started flash mob: users posted their reactions to Zelensky’s supposedly authentic words.