In April 2023, the Runet of 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 stated in his appeal. We checked the authenticity of the video.

A short video walks along social networks, where Vladimir Zelensky says: “I want to contact the citizens of Belarus today. We will find you all. Each of you will be responsible for these blows. And if someone thinks that he will get away from responsibility, saying that "such an order was," you are mistaken. And you will not hide anywhere - neither on the shores of the Caspian Sea, over which your missiles are launched ... ”After the words of Zelensky, a passage from the Soviet film“ Gentlemen of Good luck ”is demonstrated, 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 Navy of Belarus will take into account this threat and take their ships away from sin to the ports of the postscript. But are there Belarusians, that they have the Caspian Sea? " -ironically says 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), "The first folk"(154,000),"Uncle Glory"(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 dispersed in "VKontakte" Twitter and Facebook (examples here, here And here), and also found in "Zen"And on Somenewssites.

Video: social networks

The Caspian Sea is the largest vapor with a reservoir on Earth. He Washes The shores of the five countries: Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan - Belarus is not among them. Technically in the viral record, Zelensky did not claim that Belarus was at the Caspian, the President of Ukraine allegedly only spoke about the launch of Belarusian missiles from the coast of the Caspian Sea. But did he affirm this in reality?

By searching for keywords, “verified” found out that with a similar speech Zelensky He performed In the summer of 2022. IN video According to the results of June 26, 2022 (after the start of a full -scale war, the Ukrainian leader publishes such videos every day) he Turned To some Russian troops:

Firstly, all pilots, dispatchers, equipment and other people who ensure the launch of missiles in Ukraine should understand: we will find you all. Each of you will be responsible for these blows. And if someone thinks that he will get away from responsibility, saying that "such an order was," you are mistaken. When your missiles beat in residential buildings - this is war crimes. The court is what awaits you all. And you will not hide anywhere: neither on the shores of the Caspian Sea, over which your rockets are launched, nor in Belarus - nowhere.

Immediately after that It began A separate appeal to the inhabitants of Belarus:

And separately, I want to contact the citizens of Belarus today. To people - both civilian and uniform. You are drawn into the war. And even more actively than it was in February and in the spring months. In the Kremlin, everything has already decided for you: your lives are worth nothing for them. But you are not slaves and not cannon meat. You should not die. And you are able to prevent anyone from deciding for you what awaits you next. I know that the people of Belarus supports Ukraine. They support us. Just us, not a war. And that is why you, all Belarusians, the Russian leadership and wants to draw into the war, wants to sow hatred between us. A lot depends on the ordinary people of Belarus now, and I know that you may not participate in this war. Your lives belong only to you, and only, and not to anyone in the Kremlin.

The official appeal of Zelensky

Thus, Zelensky’s viral appeal was mounted from several fragments of one of his last year's performances.

Now as for the source. Most publications use video From the Tiktok account Yulia Kukharenko (@yuliyakukharenko) - there is a video appeared April 7, 2023 and scored less than 1900 views. Tiktok does not show the exact time of publication, but the page code indicates Unix time, which can be transferred to Moscow. So “verified” it found out that Kukharenko posted a video at 19:59:58. However, this is not the earliest video. In the process of searching for records with the same video in Telegram, we found a post in the channel "Tata Medvedev" published As early as April 6 at 22:29, but this is not the original. We found that the Tiktok account Nina (@meggxs) Laid Viral video, which scored more than 930,000 views, on April 6 at 0:32:21, after which in this social network It has begun Flashmob: Users laid out their reactions to the supposedly genuine words of Zelensky.