In mid-September 2023, photographs of two murals circulated on social networks in which the President of Ukraine eats parts of the body of a Ukrainian Armed Forces soldier - allegedly, an unknown artist painted houses in Paris and Berlin, and now the police are looking for him. We decided to check if this is true.
The first posts on Telegram about graffiti allegedly painted in Berlin appeared on September 13. These entries were illustrated with three photographs. On the first there is the mural itself: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky eating a severed hand in a military uniform with the symbols of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the inscription “Cannibal” in German. The second and third are screenshots of publications in Deutsche Welle and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. These articles stated that German police were allegedly alarmed and were looking for an unknown attacker. Photos with this graffiti were published by many popular Telegram channels, including “Mriya"(164,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) and "Sheikh Tamir"(121,000). On September 16, the story continued. A photo of the second mural, allegedly created in Paris, appeared on social networks. Only this time Zelensky was depicted eating not an arm, but a leg. As in the previous case, the photo was accompanied by a screenshot of a media publication: this time in the French Le Point, which also stated that the police were looking for the author of the graffiti. In particular, the same “Sheikh Tamir"(126,000), as well as TV presenter Ruslan Ostashko (116,000).
Berlin graffiti
All Telegram channels that wrote about the graffiti that appeared on the wall of a house in Berlin mentioned German media - Deutsche Welle and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. These publications allegedly reported that the police were actively looking for the author of anti-Ukrainian graffiti.
However, none of these publications published such materials: site search Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung did not give any result. A screenshot of a story on the Deutsche Welle Instagram account is also attached to the viral posts - although such publications are only available for 24 hours, the screenshot shows a link to DW website, and there (as well as in other social networks this media) there are no notes about “scandalous graffiti”. In addition, errors in the short text on the screenshot allegedly from FAZ are striking: Zelensky is named Vladimir Zelensky (and just below the name of the Ukrainian president is written Zelinsky). But in the German media, including the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, different spelling accepted, based on transliteration from Ukrainian, not Russian: Wolodymyr Selenskyj.
The fact that the German media did not report on the police search for an unknown artist is not surprising, given that the house depicted in the photograph has nothing to do with Berlin or Germany as a whole. Fact-checking project Lead Stories found this house is in Poland. The image in the viral photo matches the photo of house number 4 on Ignacy Potocki Street in Warsaw.
Many noticeable details are the same: the green balcony on the left, street lights, decoration of the entrance to the entrance. At the same time, the authors of the fake took the trouble to remove signs with the street name and house number, and also replace the Polish flag with a German one. It was also not possible to find any mention of this graffiti on Polish social networks, which leads to the conclusion that it did not exist - otherwise it is unclear why it would be passed off as Berlin (especially considering that false reports of similar drawings in Warsaw have already published in pro-Russian Telegram channels).
The earliest publication with this photo that “Verified” was able to discover was a post in the Telegram channel “DPR 🅉 INFO 🇷🇺", which appeared on September 13 at 12:21 Moscow time.
Parisian graffiti
Telegram posts about Parisian graffiti follow the same pattern as in the previous case: a photograph of a house with a mural and a screenshot of a media article on this topic.
There are no obvious spelling errors in the small text allegedly published on the Le Point website, but at the bottom it is indicated that this is a message from “special correspondent in Paris Jean-Noël Lessard.” Firstly, it is unclear why a publication whose editors located in Paris, special correspondent in the French capital. Secondly, it was not possible to find a journalist with that name, neither in Le Point nor in other French media. Finally, search by publications on the publication’s website also did not produce any results: Le Point did not publish any reports about graffiti with a portrait of Zelensky. There are no mentions of the drawing on French social networks either.
Unlike the previous graffiti, the house depicted in the photograph is actually located in the city indicated in the publications. "Verified" determined, that this is Montreuil, an eastern suburb of Paris, and the house is located on the corner of Marceau and Robespierre streets.
This area has been mentioned more than once in “Checked” reviews. In November 2022, it was there, at the Saint-Mandé metro station (this is a short walk from the corner of Marceau and Robespierre streets) that a photograph was taken, which was then added using a photo editor fake graffiti with Zelensky devouring money. Another shot was also taken there, which became the basis for a fake about "Brussels" graffiti with Zelensky and Western military equipment. Apparently, a similar approach was used this time.
The earliest publication with the “Parisian” mural that was discovered was a post on the Telegram channel “Ostashko.Important", posted on September 16 at 14:12 Moscow time.
Thus, both graffiti - the “Berlin” and the Parisian - are fake. In addition, screenshots of European media publications, which were supposed to give greater weight to the photographs, also turned out to be fake.
Cover photo: social networks
- Is it true that graffiti with Zelensky appeared in Paris in the image of a black hole sucking in money?
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- Is it true that graffiti was painted in Brussels with Zelensky devouring tanks?
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