In 2023, the founder of the fact-checking project “Verified” and the host of a French TV show about exposing fakes was accused of creating fake materials discrediting Ukraine, with the aim of passing it off as Russian actions, and then publishing refutations. We have checked whether these accusations are justified.
Warning about possible conflict of interest. One of the central characters of this analysis is the founder and editor-in-chief of Verified, Ilya Ber. He did not participate in the preparation of this publication, nor did representatives of the France 24 television channel.
In the summer of 2022, covers of various foreign (most often satirical) publications began to appear on the Internet, which allegedly featured caricatures of Vladimir Zelensky and other drawings ridiculing Ukraine. The earliest such images represented featured on the cover of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Over the following months, “Verified” and fact checkers from other countries dismantled several dozen similar images - in the vast majority of cases they turned out to be fakes, originally published in pro-Russian Telegram channels.
Autumn 2022 appeared a new type of fake: supposedly on the streets of various cities in Europe and the USA, anonymous Polish artists began to draw 3D graffiti with Zelensky in the form of a money-eating black hole or locust, as well as in the images of a pimple, feces, etc. We dismantled Ten cases of such images appearing - all photos were digitally superimposed with graffiti. In other words, such drawings never appeared on the streets. Moreover, sometimes the authors of the fakes indicated in the captions to the photographs the wrong cities where the photographs were taken.
In 2023, the founder and editor-in-chief of Verified was accused of creating these fakes. Ilyu Bera and a French journalist Catalina Marchand de Abreu. Below we will examine both charges separately.
Ilya Ber and covers
On May 18, 2023, messages appeared on Telegram that French journalists allegedly accused the Russian opposition of mass forgery of covers on behalf of Charlie Hebdo magazine. This news appeared in only a few relatively large channels, one of which belongs to the TV presenter Ruslan Ostashko (107,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), where previously there were published dozens of fake caricatures. “Journalist Ilya Ber ordered fake Charlie Hebdo covers. This was stated by a Russian artist who carried out orders from the “oppositionist.” It turned out that Behr was trying to make money by investigating the same covers of allegedly Charlie Hebdo. But he was greedy to pay the artist for his work. Therefore, he “surrendered” him to the French media, and the Russian “opposition” was once again disgraced,” it says in a post by the presenter of Channel One. Similar recordings appeared in the radio host’s channels Romana Golovanova (15,000 views) and Belvestnik (3100).
The primary source of these messages was the Telegram channel “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation"(12,000 views). Regular readers of “Verified” should be very familiar with this name, since this channel is one of the record holders for the number of fake publications, with many fake covers initially appeared right there. May 18 at 10:45 Moscow time there published such a post: “The French learned that a certain shit-eating “whistleblower” Ilya Ber massively drew non-existent covers of Charlie magazine in order to later investigate them, simultaneously accusing Russian propaganda of producing fakes. For all the interviews and his “investigations” he received money from clear sponsors, but Ilyukha got burned because he didn’t pay the artist and he leaked everything to the media. Is he a scoundrel or just an idiot? The publication also included a video and a screenshot of Instagram* stories allegedly from the French newspapers 20 Minutes and Le Parisien, respectively.
The two-minute video is a video sequence with superimposed French titles, and the 20 Minutes video logo is placed in the upper right corner. Among the frames used are screenshots of the texts “Verified” and excerpts from a program about refuting fakes on the France 24 television channel with comments by Ber. Below is the translation.
The Russian opposition creates fake news. The Russian opposition turned out to be the author of fake news in the world media. In 2022, fake covers began to circulate on the Internet, including those of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Images discrediting the Ukrainian army and its president appeared on the fake covers. It was believed that Russian state propaganda was behind these covers. The sensational recognition of the Russian artist turned this idea upside down. Alexey Sidorov (name changed) admitted to creating fake news on behalf of the Russian opposition. The customer was Ilya Ber, a Russian journalist and creator of the Verified.Media project. According to Alexei Sidorov, their goal was to discredit Russian propaganda.
[Ber:] “Apparently they have at their disposal what they consider to be a talented artist or group of authors, including artists. And they decided to use them, so to speak, for their intended purpose. And since for some reason Western, even satirical publications, do not draw caricatures of Zelensky, then let’s help them, and draw for them, and pretend that these are their caricatures.”
Ilya Ber created precedents for his own investigations. He passed off false reports as products created by the Kremlin. As a result, the opposition in Russia receives foreign subsidies for its activities. She makes money by hosting public conferences.
[Dialogue Yuri Dudya** with Garry Kasparov**:]
— Your fee is about $50,000 for such a lecture?
— Well, from $50,000.
— From $50,000.
- Yes.
— As far as I understand, former US presidents charge about that much for a lecture.
- I think it’s five times more, but it doesn’t matter.
The artist made this confession after a personal conflict with Ilya Ber. Ilya Ber refused to pay him for his work and then began to threaten him. Ilya Ber and representatives of Provereno.Media declined to comment.
On the official website and in verified social networks 20 Minutes there is no such video. On the contrary, search on the newspaper website for Charlie Hebdo Ber issues material with refutation. In an analysis published on May 24, approvedthat the graphic design of the 20 Minute videos was copied as part of a disinformation campaign carried out by Russian propaganda. At the end of the fake video (at the 02:01 mark) the name of the journalist is indicated Suzany Nevenkic. “My team is worried about this. The video is almost identical to ours,” admitted Nevenkich. According to her, even the most complex elements have been faked—for example, the publication’s logo, which fills in as you view it. At the same time, the editors of 20 Minutes noted that there are inconsistencies in the fake, for example, a different font (the authors of fakes almost never can choose the right fonts - this can be seen in the example parsing "Verified" about another fake 20 Minutes video).
Your analysis of a fake released and fact checkers from the Les Observateurs project of the France 24 television channel, previously also disassembled Lots of fake covers. They also did not find a similar video from 20 Minutes on the publication’s resources, and Nevenkich again said that she had never made a story about Ber. In addition, French journalists found There are several syntax errors in the text and we came to the conclusion that the video used a poor translation into French.
As for the story allegedly from Le Parisien, its existence cannot be accurately confirmed or denied, since more than 24 hours have passed since its supposed posting. However, the publication allegedly contained a link to material on the newspaper’s website, but there were notes about Behr’s connection with the fake Charlie Hebdo covers No. In addition, the font used on Ber's stories is also different from that used in actual Le Parisien publications.
The words of the editor-in-chief of “Verified”, used in the fake video (at the 00:55 mark), are genuine, but were taken out of context - Behr did not make any sensational confessions. On November 26, he participated in the broadcast of the Dozhd TV channel***, where he was asked about the purpose of creating fake caricatures. The next day, an excerpt from that program published separate video - this is why the fake indicated November 27 incorrectly. In addition, Ber was broadcast from Tallinn, and not from Moscow, as the caption in the fabricated video says.
A fragment of Kasparov’s interview with Dudu is also taken out of context - the authors of the fake video cut out an excerpt from the chess player and politician’s answer to the question about fees for his lectures, keeping silent about what Kasparov talks about in them. Right before the used episode he explains, that first he lectured on how to apply gaming skills in business and life, then on human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence. Kasparov emphasizes that many customers demanded that he not speak out about Russian politics during speeches.
Back in the spring, in a conversation with France 24 Ber explained: “In that interview (to Dozhd - editor’s note) I described the strategy used by those who distribute these fake covers, as well as fake graffiti and all these fabricated videos: false narratives, their connections with each other, etc. I gave many interviews on this topic, because several dozen analyzes on this topic were published on the Verified website.” When asked why they needed to create a spoof on behalf of 20 Minutes, Behr said ironically: “Obviously their strategy didn’t work because very few people shared the video. Perhaps this was a grassroots initiative, which for some reason did not receive the support of the authorities. I also see it as a kind of wink to us, like: “Hey, we see you, we are following your investigations.” At the same time, the editors of “Verified” did not receive letters asking for comment, which the distributors of the fake video wrote about.
France 24 and graffiti
A few months later, on September 9, 2023, a new accusation appeared on Telegram: France 24 allegedly ordered anti-Ukrainian graffiti in order to blame Russia for their creation. This time, the earliest publication that “Verified” was able to find was in the channel Ostashko (110,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). Post by Russian TV presenter reads: “Journalist Catalina Marchand de Abreu found a naive Ukrainian artist who, for three kopecks, painted graffiti with ugly Zelensky all over the world. And then she, together with her deceitful colleagues, made stories on this topic, in which she exposed and strongly condemned these graffiti as Russian propaganda. But the Ukrainian handed over the lying Catalina because he received a notice of eviction to his historical homeland.” Attached to the recording again is a video purporting to be from the 20 Minutes newspaper. In a digest published later, Ostashko channel named this revelation is one of the main events of the day.
Similar posts appeared on the site EADaily, as well as in other Telegram channels. For example, in the channel "Heavenly“(155,000 views) the news was commented on as follows: “Fake technologies have reached a new level.” In the channel Swiss Vatnik (12,000) wrote (the author’s spelling and punctuation are preserved): “...And then the journalist went to the place where the graffiti appeared to film stories on the topic of exposing Russian propaganda. <…> I don’t know whether the journalist will answer for outright lies, but she is still on the staff of France 24.” A video on behalf of 20 Minutes also appeared in the channels "Far Away Kingdom"(19,000 views), "Kali Yuga Today" (15,000) and "Long tongue"(12,000), on VKontakte (examples here, here And here), social network X (formerly Twitter; here And here) and Facebook* (here And here).
To begin with, we note that the authors of the publications listed above did not fully understand what was discussed in the video they posted. As stated at the beginning of this analysis, the mentioned anti-Ukrainian graffiti never appeared on the roads of cities in Europe and the USA, since all the photos were edited in computer programs. The distributed video even shows footage of viral photos being analyzed for the presence of digital changes (at 00:27 and 00:41). Accordingly, Marchand de Abreu did not go anywhere, but told about fakes in the TV channel’s studio as part of the program Truth or Fake (English version Info ou Intox).
Below is a translation of the captions from the viral video.
France 24: fakes to attract audience? France 24 was caught red-handed creating fake graffiti. Last year, anti-Ukrainian graffiti appeared all over the world. France 24 TV channel actively condemned the images, claiming that Russia was behind the graffiti. It turned out that the fake graffiti was the project of journalist Catalina Marchand de Abreu. She spoke out several times to refute the fakes. Evgeniy Ivanchenko (not his real name) created the images for France 24. Catalina Marchand de Abreu used fake investigations to increase the ratings of her programs. Ivanchenko decided to expose the deception when he received a deportation notice. Fleeing from the fighting in Ukraine, the artist found refuge in France. According to him, he personally contacted Catalina Marchand de Abreu. The journalist promised him sponsorship on behalf of the channel. But Ivanchenko was deceived.
This video is also not on the website of the 20 Minutes newspaper, but on September 14 a refutation was published there. In it again approved, that the video about the involvement of the France 24 television channel in the creation of fake graffiti only imitates the stories of 20 Minutes, and in fact has nothing to do with the editors of the publication. “Although the style of the video [music, logo, color scheme, appearance of texts and even end credits] is consistent with the 20 Minutes news video, the video was not created by us,” said the chief video editor Brun Dodre, whose name appears at the end of the fake video. “It is not in our archives; it was not edited by the journalist mentioned in the credits at the end.” Dodre also noted the mistake made by the falsifiers: “If you look closely at the font in which the text is typed, and at the animation with which this text appears, you can notice a small, but still a difference with our graphic elements.”
Your investigation held and AFP journalists. The fact that the video was not created by the 20 Minutes team was confirmed to them by Anne Baron, the publication's media relations manager. Fact checkers also contacted Dodre, who said: "The end credits were taken from another video of ours and added to the fake video." Journalist Paul Blaine Kernivinen, allegedly responsible for editing the video about the falsification of graffiti, said that he had never worked on such a topic, and clarified that the fake used music and titles from a video about the arrest of former US President Donald Trump, published August 25, 2023. This explains the mention site election campaign politician at the top of the credits (at the 01:08 mark).
The fake video allegedly shows a photo of a Ukrainian artist under the pseudonym Evgeniy Ivanchenko (at the 00:30 mark), with the man's face blurred out in the photo. “Verified” found out that the original photo is publicly available on VKontakte, where it was posted on July 24, 2021 published user by name Dima Speshilov. According to his profile, subscriptions and some publications, he lives in Perm and works at the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Speshilov did not respond to “Verified” messages asking for comment.
Derek Thomson, editor-in-chief of France 24's Info ou Intox and Les Observateurs, also categorically denies accusation: “We did not make fake graffiti; our journalist does not know a single Ukrainian artist who has taken refuge in France. She never created false investigations and never paid anyone for information! This even contradicts charter France Médias Monde (parent company of France 24 - Ed.).” Rebuttal with links to 20 Minutes and AFP published Twitter account Info ou Intox, coming soon reposted and Marchand de Abreu.
Thus, the accusations against Ber and de Abreu have no basis. The only evidence that these journalists forged anti-Ukrainian materials are videos from the publication 20 Minutes, whose editors called them fakes, and a screenshot of an alleged story from the newspaper Le Parisien, on whose website there are no such texts. Other details indicate the disinformation nature of the video. The creation of such fakes suggests that the authors of the fakes are monitoring refutations and, apparently, are unhappy with fact checkers pointing out their numerous blunders, mistakes and oversights. Propagandists have decided to fight fact-checking using proven methods - they regularly falsify videos on behalf of authoritative and well-known foreign media, including Al Jazeera, euronews, DGP, DW**, Reuters And Fox News.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
**The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation introduced a journalist Yuri Dudya, chess player Garry Kasparov and television and radio company Deutsche Welle to the list of foreign agents.
***Russian authorities recognized the Dozhd TV channel Foreign agent media And undesirable organization on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Cover photo: collage “Checked”
- Delfi. Not just trolls. How the arsenal of Russian propagandists was replenished with fake covers and fake videos of the world media
- Les Observateurs, France 24. À quoi servent ces fausses unes de Charlie Hebdo relayées en Russie?
- Is it true that graffiti has appeared in Germany and France depicting Zelensky as a cannibal?
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