In mid-August 2023, covers of American and German magazines with cartoons about the superiority of Russian aviation and tension in Ukrainian-Polish relations went viral on the Internet. We decided to check if these are real covers.
American magazine Chronicles
The cover allegedly released by the publication depicts a shot down fighter that “says”: “I’m the Ghost of Kyiv.” Ghost of Kyiv"), and a larger fighter with a star on its tail that shot it down, which "declares": "So, we're Ghostbusters" ("In that case, we are Ghostbusters"). The cover also bears what appears to be the title of one of the articles in this issue: “Russia - Ukraine War: Who is the True King of the Sky in Ukraine” signed by Wayne Allensworth. On August 11, the caricature was posted on the Telegram channel Fighterbomber (1.2 million views at the time of writing this analysis), and then it was distributed, among others, by the channels “Russia now"(261,000), "Putin on Telegram! (166,000) and Voblya (123,000, repost deleted).
The cover, purportedly from Chronicles magazine, notes that it is an August 2023 issue. However, on website publication, where all issues of the magazine are presented, the August issue looks completely different - its cover is dedicated to the US elections.
The last publication of the military aircraft cartoon at the time of distribution was on the author's page of publicist Wayne Allensworth on the Chronicles website dedicated death of writer Cormac McCarthy, and his last publication about Ukraine is dated May 2022. “Verified” was unable to find any traces of the article under the heading Russia - Ukraine War: Who is the True King of the Sky in Ukraine either on the magazine’s website or on blogs and social networks.
The Fighterbomber Telegram channel, which was the first to distribute the cover, writes that it “stuck on the site for just a little while, after which it disappeared somewhere.” However, judging by address directory of the file with the August cover on the Chronicles website, it was posted back in July, long before the post appeared in the channel.
The fake caricature was actually made on the basis of an earlier Russian one: “Verified” discovered a drawing in public former cartoonist for RIA Novosti Vitaly Podvitsky on VKontakte. Podvitsky has been making political anti-Western cartoons since 2014. This drawing can be dated no later than 2018 year, and a sketch of the fighter in the same public was published back in 2014.
The fact that this is a fake is also indicated by a technical error: the barcode on the magazine is taken from the cover of the real June 2022 issue of Chronicles.
German magazine Eulenspiegel
The publication of the second cover is attributed to the German satirical magazine Eulenspiegel. The cartoon depicts Polish President Andrzej Duda running away from Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky with the words “It is obvious that the Ukrainian counter-offensive is failing.” Following Duda with a torch, Zelensky shouts: “What are you, an idiot?!” Volyn massacre Want 2.0?!” This cover was shared on August 14 by Telegram channels “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation» (10,900 views), "Gasparyan» (71,000), "Lightning» (8,500). The cover did not go viral on Telegram, but was distributed in many small engaged channels, and then ended up on specific sites, in "VKontakte» and in messenger tamtam.
There is no such cover on the pages of Eulenspiegel Facebook And Twitter, nor on the official website. August cover of the publication looks otherwise, it is not dedicated to Zelensky and Duda, but to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, and it was posted on July 24, 20 days before the cover with Duda and Zelensky began to be distributed in the Russian-language Telegram segment.
There is also a technical error here: the magazine is numbered 08/2023, while the original Eulenspiegel covers always show the number without a leading zero. The barcode used to create the fake was taken from the cover of the real August issue.
This is not the first attempt to pass off a fake as a real cover of a German satirical magazine. “Verified” has already analyzed stories with allegedly March, June And July Eulenspiegel covers - all of them turned out to be fakes and, like the latest cartoon about Duda and Zelensky, were first published in the Telegram channel “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation."
Cover photo: collage “Checked”
- Is it true that the satirical magazine Humor Times released a cover with Zelensky as a locust eating money?
- Is it true that on three covers of Charlie Hebdo the President of Ukraine is depicted as a dog?
- Is it true that foreign magazines published these covers dedicated to Zelensky and the Ukrainian church?
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please let us know by highlighting the error text and clicking Ctrl+Enter.
