In September 2023, a message spread on the RuNet that after resigning from the post of head of the Ukrainian military department, Alexey Reznikov was allegedly spotted in the company of his companion in one of the European countries. We have checked the photograph provided as evidence.
September 4, 2023 Alexey Reznikov submitted resignation letter from the post of Minister of Defense of Ukraine, which occupied from November 2021, and published A snapshot of the statement on your Facebook*. The next day the Ukrainian parliament supported dismissal of an official. Less than a week after his resignation, on September 10, posts appeared on social networks that the former minister was allegedly already vacationing on a yacht - a photograph of Reznikov with his companion was attached as proof, while the location of the shooting differs in different publications. Most of them indicate that the viral photo was taken somewhere in Europe, sometimes there is a clarification about European Union, in some publications called Cote d'Azur, or French Riviera, and also London. September 12 in the program “Time will show“The photo itself was not shown on Channel One, but the presenter Olesya Loseva said: “It should be noted that retired Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov is already happily sipping champagne on a yacht in Monaco with his companion.” At the same time, the authors of some posts claim, that in the photo Reznikov drinks away the money Ukraine received from the West as part of military assistance.
Such publications appeared in Telegram channels “Sanya in Florida"(366,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Solovyov"(229,000), "Dmitry Vasilets"(218,000), "Evgeny Prigozhin on Telegram"(108,000), "Belarusian security officer"(101,000), "Gasparyan"(66,000), "Club service"(58,000), ""Special Operation Z" | Yuri Podolyaka+"(42,000), "Actually in Kharkov" (17,000) and "Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation"(10,000), as well as on VKontakte (examples here, here And here) and X (formerly Twitter; here, here And here). Among the media and news sites about Reznikov’s photo they wrote “Mriya", "Zov Kharkov", "Podolyak" and newspaper "Capital C"
Having carried out the reverse search according to the viral image, in the Google “Verified” search results I found an article with Reznikov’s biography, published on the website of the Ukrainian Channel 24 on November 4, 2021, the day of his appointment as Minister of Defense. In the material, among the pictures demonstrating different periods of the official’s life, a viral photo was also posted. “A whirlwind romance with the TV presenter of the morning show on the ICTV channel Yulia Zoriy became known in the winter of 2020, when the couple announced their engagement. Reznikov wrote a long post on Facebook on Valentine’s Day and finally revealed the secret,” the channel’s website said. The caption to the photo states that it was taken in Istanbul.
On Facebook, the former Minister of Defense, indeed, has recording for February 14, 2020 with the photo we are interested in. In the same post there are two other photos taken on the same yacht. Reznikov wrote: “Valentine’s Day. Today, postcards with hearts dominate all news feeds. I once made a post at the time of my dismissal from the civil service (in 2016–2018, Reznikov worked Deputy Head of the Kyiv Administration. — Approx. ed.), that I plan to finish my studies and fall in love. Plans are always realized if you consciously send a request to universal space. And she said yes! Yulia Zoriy, it’s time to confess to the world!”
As for the shooting location, the photographs were indeed taken in Turkey. To verify this, just write “fortress in Istanbul” in the Google Maps search bar and look panoramic photos of the Rumeli fortress (Rumelihisar). This is an ancient building located in the European part of the city on the shores of the Bosphorus Strait.
In his publication, Reznikov did not specify the exact date of the shooting. Fact checkers from projects StopFake And "Fact meter"and also some Ukrainian media claim that the photographs were taken at the beginning of 2020, that is, when they were published on the official’s social networks. However, according to "24 channels"Reznikov proposed to his beloved back in the fall of 2019 (some publications clarify, that we are talking about November). “Verified” found Zoriy’s interview with Elle magazine, in which she reportedthat she said “yes” to her chosen one just in November 2019. We also studied the TV presenter's Instagram* and found several photo, which, according to geotags, were done in Istanbul and published at the end of November 2019. In some of these photographs, Zoriy wears the same clothes and stands on the same yacht as in Reznikov's photo. In the captions for the photos, the presenter talks about love and how “Istanbul has suddenly become a very special city.”
The distribution of a photo of Reznikova and Zoriy with an incorrect caption began in Russian on Telegram. The earliest misinformation post that Verified was able to track using keywords was appeared September 10 at 11:44 Moscow time in the channel of the Belarusian blogger Anton Shabashov (16,000 views). On VKontakte, the earliest such publication was also done in Shabashov’s public (2100 views) at 11:47. At the same time, according to the TGStat service, a post with similar content was posted in the Telegram channel “Belletrist” on the evening of September 9, but it was deleted after 13 minutes.
Thus, the widely circulated photo of Reznikov was taken not in Europe in September 2023, but in Turkey in November 2019, two years before he took the post of Minister of Defense of Ukraine.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: Oleksii Reznikov
- Reuters. Fact Check: Photo of former Ukraine defense minister on yacht dates to 2020
- "Channel 24". "From Deputy Prime Minister to the Ministry of Defense: biography of Alexei Reznikov»
- Is it true that Bill Gates bought the world's first yacht powered by liquid hydrogen?
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