In 2023, several photos and videos were distributed on the RuNet, showing a tattoo depicting the Ukrainian president. One of these tattoos allegedly helps a Ukrainian sex worker get more money in the US, and two others ended up on American television, where they were called ugly. We have checked whether these images are real.
On the buttock
At the beginning of February 2023, messages appeared on social networks about how tattoos depicting the Ukrainian president allegedly help sex workers abroad. “In the USA, a Ukrainian refugee escort is using Zelensky’s face to earn more money. Users noticed a life hack from an escort on English-language forums. It turns out that you need to get a tattoo of Zelensky on your ass, and the Americans are ready to order your services at an increased price!” - says the caption to the photo of a girl with a corresponding tattoo on the Telegram channel “Tough of the day"(114,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). In many other similar posts approvedthat this method is used not by one, but by several women.
Similar publications can be found in Russian-language Telegram channels “Observer"(232,000 views), Voblya (179,000), "Federation"(90,000), "Russia 🇷🇺 Live"(85,000), "DPR info"(62,000), "Boiling water" (61,000), "Bad news"(47,000), "Transnistrian"(26,000), "Shaman Rahu"(2300), etc. They wrote about a Ukrainian sex worker with Zelensky's tattoo on VKontakte (examples here, here And here), as well as on the website RIA FAN and others news resources. In April, this girl’s story was told in a newspaper article “Arguments and facts"
“Verified” found the earliest post with a similar story and a photo of a girl with Zelensky’s tattoo in the Russian Telegram channel “Kot Kostyan - official channel"(178,000 views), which mentioned dozens of times in our refutations. There, a viral image appeared on February 2 at 21:31 Moscow time, while the next day a second image, a screenshot of a post on an anonymous English-language web forum, began to be distributed through other channels. For example, in the Telegram channel “South Live"(2900 views), related with Vladimir Solovyov’s broadcast, it is indicated that the screenshot was sent by a subscriber who noticed a “life hack from an escort.”
A post entitled “My ass is in demand thanks to Zelensky” was allegedly published on the forum on February 2, but we were unable to find it. Below is the full translation of the text.
During these difficult times, I would like to share some useful tips for my work colleagues. For about a year now I have been accompanying men to various business meetings, sometimes agreeing to additional services. With the start of the war, I decided to support our President Zelensky and got a tattoo of him. I didn’t even suspect that this was my lucky ticket. After all, because of the war, I recently moved to the USA to work. I studied the escort industry and tried to find the right contacts so as not to fall for scammers. Eventually, after a couple of months, I managed to get the hang of it and find regular clients. I didn’t think that Zelensky’s tattoo would be so popular in the USA. The number of clients has grown significantly, and they are all very satisfied with my services. They actively agree to a higher price. I never thought that I would be grateful to Zelensky for the fact that because of him my ass became so in demand.
Using a reverse image search, we found the same photo, but without the Zelensky tattoo, on the website leakxxx.com, where erotic content is published. There was a picture there posted back in October 2021, that is, several months before the start of the so-called special operation. The photo shows a webcam model under the nickname betajizz (also known as Beverly B.).
On the lower back
At the end of February, another story arose on the Runet on the topic of a tattoo with Zelensky. It was reportedthat an American woman allegedly unsuccessfully tattooed an image of the Ukrainian president and thereby “scared seasoned participants in an American show about ugly tattoos.” Sometimes TBCthat this work received the title of the ugliest tattoo of 2022. The authors of some publications also add: “You won’t believe this, this is not a joke, but an absolutely real tattoo.”
This time the most popular post was on VKontakte - in the public “Ax - storage", where it received more than 340,000 views. As for Telegram, the following number of channels spread the news there: “Observer"(226,000 views), "Heavenly"(155,000), TG Team Russia (83,000), "Sexton"(73,000), "Boiling water"(63,000), "Voice of Mordor" (61,000), "Truth of Russia" (53,000), "Granitsa.ru"(44,000), "New 🅉 Ukraine"(36,000), "I'm shocked"(36,000), "Men's Legion"(21,000), "Shark"(10,000), etc.
The earliest publication with this story appeared on the morning of February 20 in the Telegram channel “Before everyone else. Well almost. Special operation"(12,000 views), which previously was becoming the primary source of dozens of fakes. There, as in some other similar posts, in addition to the photo of the tattoo itself, you can find a 15-second video announcement of a program supposedly called “The Worst Tattoos in the World for 2022.” The video shows how the presenters allegedly scold the artist for her work with the image of Zelensky, and she claims that her client liked everything. At the same time, the logo of the Apple TV+ streaming service is shown in the upper right corner of the video, and at the end of the trailer it is announced that the show will be released on March 31 with an R rating.
In fact, there is no show with that name on any streaming service. Moreover, in the USA, such television projects cannot receive an R age restriction. intended for film products, since such TV content is assessed differently system.
Having determined the identities of the people participating in the program, “Verified” found out that in fact the viral video is a fragment of a reality show Ink Master Paramount channel, where tattoo artists participate in various competitions. On the official YouTube channel of the program, the video we were interested in was published back on September 12, 2021. It's called "The Worst Tattoos of Season 12 (Part 2)." The passage we need begins at the timestamp 15:40. According to the terms of the competition, the tattooist had to fill a new image on top of the old tattoo: as a result, instead of a butterfly with a hieroglyph it worked out owl on a branch.
Putting that photo of Zelensky in the 12th season of Ink Master would not have worked even in theory, since that episode of the reality show went out in 2019, and snapshot Ukrainian President done only in March 2022. In addition, we have established that the ending of the fabricated video taken from the trailer for the film "Tetris", which was published on the Apple TV channel on February 16, 2023.
On the navel
The latest story appeared on the Internet quite recently, at the end of November. This time on social networks told this story: “The tattoo with the “counter-attack on Zelensky’s ass” ended up in a show about pranks with tattoos. The essence of the show is that the participant agrees to get a tattoo, but until the very end he does not know what exactly will be tattooed on him. One of the participants had Zelensky’s bare ass tattooed on his stomach with the caption “Counterattack in my ass.” Overall, the tattoo is terrible, but it very clearly reflects what happened with the counterattack.” Sometimes it is specified that everything happened in last episode of either American or English reality show on the Netflix streaming service.
The 51-second video and its screenshot went viral on pro-Russian public pages on VKontakte (examples here, here And here), as well as in Telegram channels, including “Russia now"(248,000 views), "Lighthouse" (170,000), "Putin on Telegram"(158,000), Voblya (157,000), "Release the Kraken!" (146,000), "Banned"(80,000), "Alexander Semchenko"(78,000), "Special Operation Z" (70,000), "DPR Info" (50,000), "Sexton"(46,000), "What happened?"(36,000), "Donetsk Z" (29,000) and "Thoughts Okhlobystin"(28,000).
The earliest publication of the video, which was tracked by “Verified”, appeared on the afternoon of November 20 in the Telegram channel “Sheikh Tamir"(133,000 views) - surprisingly, this is again one of record holders on the spread of the fakes we have analyzed. The viral video features the Netflix logo in the lower right corner and features actor Joel McHale at the end of the video.
We found out that in fact the viral recording is an excerpt from the American “Joel McHale Show”, which in 2018 broadcast on Netflix and the same year closed, and Zelensky was elected President of Ukraine only in 2019. The passage we were interested in was published on the YouTube channel of the streaming service also in 2018. In the video, McHale talked about the program Just Tattoo of Us from the British version of the MTV channel, where the participants did not know what kind of tattoo they got. The program was closed in 2020.
In the original video, the hero of the show actually had a tattoo of a kneeling naked man around his navel, but in the original the person depicted has a different face - not Vladimir Zelensky. Moreover, on the real tattoo there was no inscription about counteroffensive (Counteroffensive up my ass).
Thus, all three stories we analyzed turned out to be fakes. Moreover, you can observe a kind of evolution in them: in the first case, the photo was simply edited and a fake screenshot was created, then a static photo and an excerpt from another video were embedded in the video, and the last time, the authors of the fake changed the original video sequence itself.
Cover photo: social networks
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