Is it true that the Turkish magazine LeMan came out with these covers dedicated to the events in Georgia?

In August 2023, Russian-language Telegram channels distributed cartoons allegedly published by a Turkish satirical publication and dedicated to the scandals surrounding the entry of a Russian airliner into Batumi and the concert of The Killers in Shekvetili. We have verified the accuracy of these reports.

Cover about a Russian airliner in Batumi

On the morning of July 27, a liner with 800 tourists, mainly from Russia, entered the port of Batumi. Some of the travelers in an interview with a local TV channel questioned independence of Georgia (“We are the Soviet Union. We are a single country, big, beautiful”), others denied occupation of part of Georgian territory after the 2008 war. By evening, protesters gathered near the ship - they expressed dissatisfaction with the arrival of the liner from Sochi and displayed posters condemning the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine last year and aggression against Georgia 15 years ago. The situation repeated itself four days later, when the plane arrived in Batumi again - police detained more than 20 people. The country's President Salome Zurabishvili supported the demonstrators; the ruling Georgian Dream party declared a “provocation.”

In early August, reports emerged that the Turkish satirical magazine LeMan had published a cover mocking the protests in Batumi with the caption “Georgian animators are taking away the Turks’ monopoly on entertaining Russian tourists.” In Telegram, TV presenters, in particular, spoke about this cover Vladimir Solovyov (246,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) and Ruslan Ostashko (122,000), publicist Armen Gasparyan (77,000), as well as channels GoTurk (71,000), "Ramsay"(54,000), "Firing" (17,000) and "Summary"(15,000). Users shared the cartoon Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), "Zena" And LiveJournal. Notes about the supposedly new cover of LeMan were released "Arguments and facts", "Notebook", SM News And "Mriya"

The cover indicates that this is No. 1636 dated August 2, 2023 (although it began to spread on Telegram the day before). On official website There is no such cartoon in the Turkish edition. At the same time, the real No. 1636 was released for sale at a very low price. different cover, dedicated to deforestation in southeast Turkey for the expansion of a coal mine - this is the decision of the authorities caused protests by local residents.

Technical details also indicate that the cover was faked. In particular, the font used on the barcode is significantly different from the one used by the publisher of the Turkish magazine on the actual covers.

Even on the evening of August 1, magazine cartoonist Tuncay Akgün published An image dedicated to the events in Batumi with the caption “They stubbornly continue to release fake LeMan covers.” Soon the cover is fake reported in your verified profile and the magazine itself.

The earliest publication with a fake cartoon that Verified was able to detect was posted in the “Sheikh Tamir” Telegram channel (121,000 views) on August 1 at 14:58 Moscow time. Previously from this channel already started distribution of fake cartoons allegedly published in LeMan.

Cover about The Killers concert

On August 15, a concert of the American group The Killers took place at the arena in the Georgian Shekvetili. According to tradition, the band's frontman Brandon Flowers offered to take over the drum kit for one song to anyone in the audience. The musician chose a young man with a poster and asked where he came from - it turned out that he was from Russia. The joint performance of the song with this spectator caused whistles in the hall, after which Flowers called visitors to unity and declared that they were all his brothers and sisters. Some spectators left the site because of these words, others continued boo the musicians and give them the middle finger. Subsequently The Killers And Black Sea Arena apologized to those who were offended by Flowers' words.

Soon, a supposedly new cover of LeMan began to be circulated on Telegram - on it, visitors to the concert in Shekvetili are depicted as clowns, and under the title of the magazine there is a caption “Clowns against The Killers.” This cartoon was published, in particular, by the publicist Armen Gasparyan (70,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), as well as channels "Optimist in civilian clothes 🇷🇺" (12,000), "Vzwater"(5900), Know Pravdy (4900) and "Shkvarka News"(2600). Users also shared the cover Facebook.

According to the imprint, the cartoon was featured on the cover of issue #1639 dated August 16, 2023. The issue of LeMan published that day has a different number (No. 1638), and on the official website of the magazine it looks completely different - cover dedicated the impact of elections on society.

As with the alleged LeMan cover about the events in Batumi, the cartoon dedicated to the scandal surrounding The Killers concert is provided with a barcode - again using the wrong font. This detail quite often produces fake covers of foreign satirical magazines that have been around for over a year distribute pro-Kremlin Telegram channels.

The LeMan editors did not comment on the release of this fake cover on their social networks, probably due to the fact that it spread much less widely than its “predecessor.”

Data from the TGStat service indicate that the fake was first published by the Telegram channel “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation"(11,000 views), where the corresponding post appeared on August 17 at 08:56 Moscow time. This channel holds the record for distributing such fake covers. “Verified” found out that over the past year he was the first to post more than 20 such cartoons, including those allegedly released by LeMan.

Cover photo: Telegram screenshot

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Delfi. Not just trolls. How the arsenal of Russian propagandists was replenished with fake covers and fake videos of the world media
2. Is it true that European magazines published these covers dedicated to the Ukrainian counter-offensive?
3. Is it true that foreign magazines have published covers dedicated to Zelensky’s complaints about the lack of attention?