In November 2023, Russian-language Telegram channels distributed a video in which the head of the Swedish government allegedly justifies “genocide” in the Gaza Strip. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.

On the morning of November 22, in the Telegram channel “The Goat Cried” was published video allegedly filmed in Gothenburg during a speech by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. The author of the post claims that the head of the kingdom’s government said from the stage: “Sweden and the European Union are unanimous in the opinion that Israel has the right to genoc... that is, to self-defense.” At the time of writing this analysis, the publication received 429,000 views, it was reposted by many large pro-Kremlin Telegram channels, in particular “Timofey Bazhenov Live", "Tynu40k Goblina (oper.ru)", "Release the Kraken!", "Voice of Mordor" And "Freshness" The TV presenter posted his own posts on this topic on Telegram Ruslan Ostashko (104,000 views) and blogger Sergei Kolyasnikov (aka Zergulio, 99,000 views). Videos featuring Kristersson were also published by users “VKontakte", Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and LiveJournal.

On November 21, Kristersson actually performed in one of the theaters in Gothenburg. It was expected that the head of the Swedish government, together with Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson, would communicate with local residents in a question-and-answer format. At first, the conversation was relatively calm, but when the prime minister began answering questions about Israel’s war against Hamas, the situation became “heated up and more emotional,” reported correspondent from the Swedish TV channel SVT from the scene. According to him, pro-Palestinian activists gathered at the meeting site in advance and began shouting “Crush Zionism” and other slogans. Eight participants of the event were even escorted out of the hall by the police. Half an hour later, Kristersson ended his meeting with residents ahead of schedule. Subsequently on Instagram he expressed regretted what happened and condemned the behavior of “political saboteurs” who, in his opinion, did not come to ask questions and listen to answers, but “to shout about their dissatisfaction with the fact that we condemn Hamas terrorists.”

By the morning of the next day, a video filmed that day in Gothenburg had spread across the Internet and became viral, including in the Russian-language segment of social networks. Allegedly, Kristersson made a “Freudian slip” because after the words “Sweden and the European Union are unanimous in the opinion that Israel has the right to...” he said the letter combination folk - Internet users saw this as the beginning of the word folkmord (“genocide”). Most of the videos distributed on social networks do not contain Russian or English subtitles.

“Verified” asked to watch a viral video Mattias Carlsson, journalist for the Swedish newspaper Expressen. According to him, Kristersson said that Israel can defend itself within the framework of international law (folkrätt), but stopped in the middle of this word, apparently realizing that his statement would sound like “Sweden and the European Union are unanimous in the opinion that Israel has a right to international law.” After this, the Prime Minister promptly changed the wording - “...protection within the framework of international law.” To similar conclusions came among others, fact checkers from the dpa agency.

Some of the viral posts about Kristersson's slip claim that he said the letter combination folkm, which supposedly indicates his desire to use the word folkmord (“genocide”). Logically Facts Project appealed for comment from Matthias Heldner, Professor of Phonetics and Head of the Department of Linguistics at Stockholm University. The expert studied the video and reported that he did not hear traces of the sound [m] and the vowel following it. Heldner considers the grammatical construction used by the Prime Minister to be an additional argument: if he wanted to talk about genocide, then, according to the rules of the Swedish language, he would use the phrase att begå folkmord, that is, “to commit genocide.” Instead, Kristersson used the preposition till, which combines, for example, the word försvar (“defense”).

November 24, Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on social media X statedthat the viral video is accompanied by an incorrect translation of the Prime Minister's words. “He said that Sweden and the EU firmly support Israel's right to self-defense,” the department said in a statement. A similar assessment in an interview with the newspaper Dagens Nyheter gave Swedish Defense Minister Karl-Oskar Bohlin. Kristersson himself gave comment to SVT TV: “I tried to say what I have said many times since this war began: the EU and Sweden condemn Hamas, it is a terrorist organization. The EU and Sweden support Israel's right to defend itself within the framework of international law."

How note journalists from Dagens Nyheter and other Swedish media, the video was actively circulated by Arab, Iranian and Turkish media and blogs. The Swedish branch of the human rights organization Amnesty International also contributed to its dissemination, which on November 22 published a statement criticizing the Prime Minister after his speech in Gothenburg. This post has since been updated "to clarify that we do not mean that Ulf Kristersson intended to use the word 'genocide'." Representatives of Amnesty International apologized for the mistake, but continued to insist that the Prime Minister often treats opponents incorrectly.

Thus, the video that went viral was actually made at a meeting between the head of the Swedish government and the residents of Gothenburg. But claims based on this video that the politician almost completely uttered the phrase “Sweden and the European Union are unanimous in the opinion that Israel has the right to genocide” are unfounded. Representatives of official Stockholm, as well as Swedish independent media, explained that, judging by the context, Kristersson was going to pronounce the phrase “international law,” which in Swedish begins in the same way as “genocide,” but changed the wording, realizing that in its original form his statement would be grammatically incorrect.

Cover photo: Flickr / Finnish Government