At the beginning of July 2023, covers of the newspaper Handelsblatt and the satirical magazine LeMan, which ridiculed the prospects for Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Alliance, went viral on the Internet. We decided to check if these are real caricatures.
German newspaper Handelsblatt
On July 12, a cover of an alleged Handelsblatt newspaper appeared on the Internet. The artist depicted the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, in front of whom, like a bait, hangs a door with the NATO logo, and in the corner is a laughing Secretary General of the Alliance Jens Stoltenberg. Above the picture is written: “Neverending story. It’s time to reconsider our ideas about the mental abilities of the President of Ukraine.” Obviously, the cartoon hints at the uncertainty associated with the prospects for Ukraine's membership in NATO. Before the alliance summit in Vilnius on July 11–12, official Kyiv insisted on the clearest possible plan for Ukraine’s admission to NATO, and until the last moment it was unclear whether Zelensky would take part in the event. The fact that the next issue of the newspaper allegedly came out with such a cover was reported, among others, by Telegram channels “Fast and accurate🇺🇦"(174,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Fox News Russia (84,000) and "TalipoV 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 🅉"(53,000).
The top left corner of the cover states that this is issue #134 for June 14/15/16, 2023 (that is, the Friday issue of June 14, which also covers the weekend). The newspaper with this number actually came out on June 14; it can be found in electronic form in online archive Handelsblatt. However, the cover of this edition looks different.
There are also technical errors made by the authors of two previous fake Handelsblatt cartoons that spread on the Internet in April and in June. On the left of any newspaper cover there are two barcodes. The first applies to the publication as a whole, it is always the same. The second one encodes a specific issue. In the real No. 134, the numbers 50028 are indicated, in the fake one - 50024. The numbers in the distributed image are taken from another Friday issue - No. 114 dated June 16, 2023. And the barcode with the numbers 50024 is the same on all three fake covers.
The original source of the fake was the Telegram channel “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation", where the post with the cover appeared on July 12 at 11:54 Moscow time (12,000 views). In recent months, it is this Telegram channel that has most often become the primary source of distribution of fake covers of foreign magazines and newspapers. Of the 26 similar images analyzed by “Verified” in 2023, in 19 cases it was the channel “Before everyone else” who was the first to write about it. Well almost. Special operation."
Turkish LeMan Magazine
On July 13, a second cover on the same topic began to circulate online, this time allegedly from the Turkish satirical weekly LeMan. The cartoon shows Zelensky tied to a pole. Below him is a blazing fire of armored vehicles and shells. The President of Ukraine says: “It’s so good that we will soon be accepted into NATO!” Publications with an alleged LeMan cover appeared in a number of popular Telegram channels, such as “Sheikh Tamir"(124,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) and "DPR 🅉 Info 🇷🇺"(45,000).
LeMan magazine is published once a week on Wednesdays. However, the cover being distributed states that this is No. 1633 for Thursday, July 13, 2023. We checked the social networks of the Turkish publication (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), as well as the official website and did not find a similar drawing there. Moreover, No. 1633 really exists, but it came out July 12, Wednesday, and under a completely different cover.
There are also less noticeable discrepancies. For example, the font above the barcode in the upper right corner is noticeably different from that used on the actual covers.
The primary source of the fake this time was the Telegram channel “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation", where the post with the cover appeared on July 13 at 11:16 Moscow time (11,000 views).
Cover photo: collage “Checked”
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