In September 2023, a message about a children's book allegedly published with the approval of the Russian leader of the occupied part of the Kherson region of Ukraine went viral. We checked whether there is evidence that such a publication actually exists.

On September 10 and 11, a photograph of the book cover under the heading “How not to succumb to gay propaganda” and with the caption “Approved by the acting governor of the Kherson region Vladimir Saldo” became popular in the public pages of the “Suffering Middle Ages” project on the social network X (formerly Twitter, 420,000 views and almost 8,000 reposts at the time of writing this analysis) and in “VKontakte"(93,000 views, more than 3,000 reposts), on the platform JoyReactor, as well as in the Russian-language segment Facebook. On September 12 and 13, the picture was published by a number of Russian-language Telegram channels, in particular “Bullet» (91,000 views), "Breaking news!"(23,000) and TG Team Russia (29,000). In some of these sources, the photo was accompanied by a statement that the book was not only approved, but also written Balance.

A reverse photo search shows that the cover began circulating online no later than September 9th. The earliest “Verified” post found was published that day in the Telegram channel “Observer"(29,000 views) at 12:32 Moscow time. Soon an identical recording appeared in Ukrainian on the channel “Dnipro criminal"(12,000 views), and two hours later the photo spread in the Ukrainian-language segment of the platform. After the cover separated on X (Twitter) and ended up in the “Suffering Middle Ages” public pages, causing a wave indignation and sarcastic comments among Russian-speaking users both on this social network and on Facebook. And on September 12, despite appearing in anonymous channels refutations, the message became popular, including in the patriotic segment of the Russian-language Telegram.

At the same time, only one photograph went viral on the Internet—it was not possible to find photographs from other “Verified” angles. If you look for individual details, you can conclude that the cover design was put together in a hurry: image boy and other elements were taken from stock sites, most likely Freepic, and then the cover was printed and photographed.

On the left are icons and an image from the Freepic website, on the right is the cover photo

“Verified” did not find any information about the release of such a book either on the websites of book publishers, or in the official accounts of Saldo, or in messages from official press services, or when searching through messages and comments in Kherson public pages on various social networks.

Thus, most likely, the cover was created in a single copy specifically for the creation of the photograph and its further distribution. There is no evidence that Vladimir Saldo wrote such a book or approved its publication, nor that such a book exists in principle.

Cover photo: