In June 2023, a photograph of a 3D drawing allegedly made in a Dutch city was circulated on social networks. It is reported that the author depicted the President of Ukraine as an octopus, taking money from Europe and America. We checked whether this work is real.
At the beginning of June 2023, two photographs of graffiti allegedly applied on a street in The Hague went viral on the Internet, and in one of the photographs the drawing was not yet completed. Both photos also show the author (his face is hidden) of the alleged street art, in which Vladimir Zelensky is represented as a green octopus with a human face and the coat of arms of Ukraine on his forehead. At the same time, bags of money in the colors of the flags of the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Finland and Poland are visible in the tentacles of the cephalopod.
Numerous publications report that the authors of this humiliating works by Polish artists. "Greedy octopus Zelya" - they say some posts. Some users remembered about graffiti allegedly appearing in Madrid in the spring with Zelensky in the form of locusts, calling these drawings “folk art.” Similar publications appeared in Telegram channels “Evil proof️"(143,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "What happened?"(109,000), "Russia 2.0"(70,000), Russia 🇷🇺 Live (60,000), "DPR 🅉 info 🇷🇺"(58,000), "Mriya" (52,000), "Nikita Mikhalkov on Telegram" (50,000), "Notes from Zhirinovsky"(45,000), "Patriot Z🇷🇺" (38,000), "Scott Ritter on Telegram"(22,000), "Russia" (19,000), "Truth and cats" (15,000), "Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation"(13,000), "Hardcore news"(11,000), etc. The news about The Hague graffiti became popular on VKontakte, where posts collected hundreds and thousands of likes (examples here, here, here And here). The photographs are also found in Twitter, "Odnoklassniki" (here And here) and on some entertainment and news sites, including 9Gag And "Mriya"
The primary source of the photographs we are interested in is the resources of the Typical Optical team, calling themselves as a Polish art group. Viral images from June 7, 2023 appeared in their Telegram-channel (1600 views) and in Instagram*-account, where both images were posted in nine separate posts. The English caption for the posts reads: “Damn Kraken! He's still eating our money." In geotag and hashtags indicatedthat the drawing was made in The Hague.
This is not the first time that “Verified” has analyzed the works of Typical Optical, which are regularly reported on by Russian media and Telegram channels. We first wrote about photographs published by this collective in November 2022, when reports emerged of graffiti in Warsaw depicting Zelensky as a black hole sucking in money. Then it turned out, that the photo was falsified, and such a drawing on the sidewalk in the capital of Poland did not exist. Subsequently, “Polish artists” shared photos of seven more drawings allegedly from New York, Berlin, Madrid, Brussels, London and Paris, where the President of Ukraine was represented as a locust (here And here), pimple and feces and again a black hole (here And here). A new publication from the rest is fundamental distinguishes only the presence of two photographs at once: one of them depicts unfinished graffiti. In all previous cases, “Verified” came to the conclusion that the photos were fakes, since such 3D art had never been seen on the streets. Moreover, more than once the authors indicated incorrect locations.
As for the photo of the “Hague” graffiti, it was not taken in The Hague and not in the Netherlands at all. The logo of a gas station chain can be seen in the background of both images. Avia, a shop with a Seematt-shop sign and a sign with the phrase Da amici (all this is best seen in separate fragments, published on Instagram). Using Google maps we found location of the captured location - the photo was taken in a Swiss city Bülach, located in the canton of Zurich. At the same time, this is not the first time that the authors of Typical Optical pass off the surrounding areas of Zurich as other European cities (for example, London and Berlin).
It turned out to be somewhat more difficult to answer the question of whether such graffiti actually appeared in Bülach. “Verified” could not find any mention of this drawing in the Swiss media or pictures of it from other social network users, but in this case this is not the most compelling argument. The fact is that Bülach is not such a densely populated city as London, Berlin or Zurich itself: according to website local administration, as of May 2023, just over 24,000 people lived there. “Verified” sent requests for comment on the alleged appearance of graffiti to the mayor’s office of Bülach, as well as to several establishments located near the place where the photo was taken, but by the time of publication of this text we had not received any responses.
To support the version that the photo was edited, one can cite the argument of street art experts who commented on other Typical Optical photographs. In their earlier publications, in addition to multi-colored crayons, in the photo one could see spray cans, which, according to words professional artists are used for applying paint to vertical surfaces and are not suitable for such horizontal graffiti. Soon after this, spray cans stopped appearing in photographs of “Polish artists”, and only crayons remained. At the same time, as in previous cases, the supposed graffiti author's clothes are incredibly clean, which, according to experts, would be extremely unlikely given the complexity of the work and the large time spent on its creation.
Thus, graffiti with Zelensky in the form of an octopus did not appear in The Hague, and the viral photographs published by the authors were actually taken in Switzerland. At the same time, this is the third time that “Polish artists” are passing off the surrounding areas of Zurich as other cities, where, according to local authorities and residents, Typical Optical street art has not previously appeared. However, it is impossible to say with 100% certainty that this time the 3D drawing was not in the suburbs of Zurich. However, based on the previous eight cases, the likelihood that the graffiti is real is extremely low.
At the time of publication of this analysis, Typical Optical’s Instagram, in addition to fragments of photos from The Hague, posted only a fake photo from Madrid, published in March. Previously on all deleted posts of this account stood special note about false information.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: @typicaloptical
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