Soon after the final press conference of the Russian President, information spread that the vast majority of Ukrainian Internet users watched the broadcast with Putin. We checked whether these statistics are correct.
United “Direct Line” and a large press conference by Russian President Vladimir Putin passed December 14, 2023. The very next morning, publications with the following content appeared on the Internet: “The Gallup Research Institute published data based on the results of December 14. It turned out that about 75% of Ukrainians who have Internet access watched the direct line with Putin using various VPN services. The viewing depth was a record 50% for Ukraine.”
According to the TGStat service, similar posts on Telegram received a total of at least 6.5 million views. The most popular posts were in the TV presenter’s channels Ruslana Ostashko (91,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) and the writer Zakhara Prilepina (72,000), as well as "The world today with "Yuri Podolyak"" (1.3 million), "Live broadcast"(612,000), "Russia now"(232,000), "Truthfulness"(167,000), "Uncle Slava"(162,000), "Putin on Telegram" (148,000), "Voice of the country"(144,000), "The world of Mikhail Onufrienko"(135,000), "Bloodseeker 2.0"(113,000), "First People's"(103,000), Brief (103,000), "Ivan Utenkov"(101,000), "Bullet"(96,000), "Kot Kostyan - official channel"(89,000), "Mardan" (70,000), "Truth of Russia" (61,000) and "Yakov Kedmi"(58,000). In addition, news anchors spoke about the supposed Gallup study on air.Channel One" And "Russia 24", newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda", Pravda.ru, Ura.ru , "Ukraine.ru", IA "Red Spring" And other news resources. Hundreds of similar posts appeared in “VKontakte" And X (formerly Twitter; this social network has publications in several languages).
A significant part of the records about the proposed study either consists only of text or is illustrated by footage from Putin’s press conference. However, the authors of some posts refer on the Euronews TV channel and even cite as confirmation a video prepared by its journalists and/or a screenshot of this video. The recording lasts one minute, it uses Euronews logos and a branded splash screen. Below is a translation of the text from the video.
75% of Internet users in Ukraine followed Putin's Direct Line. Gallup published data on the results of Vladimir Putin's press conference, which took place on December 14. The study looked at viewing data for the press conference in Eastern Europe. It turned out that more than 75% of Internet users in Ukraine watched the broadcast with Vladimir Putin using various VPN services. Viewing depth reached a record 50%. Only Russia and Belarus achieved higher TV Q&A rates with Putin. This broadcast set an absolute record for the depth of viewing by users in Ukraine in 2023. Vladimir Putin's press conference is an annual televised political event in Russia. This is an event with the participation of Russian President Vladimir Putin in a question-answer format.
If you believe the contents of the video, it turns out that in less than a day, the researchers somehow (the video says nothing about the methodology) analyzed the Internet traffic of Ukrainian users who allegedly watched the broadcast using VPN connections that mask user actions on the Internet. At the same time, according to data different research, in Ukraine by the Internet enjoys a significant part of the population, that is, tens of millions of citizens.
“Verified” did not find a study about viewing Putin’s press conference in Ukraine on the website Gallup, nor on the organization’s social networks (X, Instagram*, Facebook*, Threads*, YouTube). The President of the Russian Federation was on the company's website for the last time mentioned at the end of November 2023 - then Gallup published results a study according to which this summer Russians’ trust in the army decreased slightly, but remained high (75% instead of 80% in 2022). As for the Euronews video, you can find it on the channel’s official media resources (X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube) didn't work. Gallup for the last time mentioned on the publication’s website just in connection with its November publication about Russians’ trust in the army.
Additional evidence that the video is fake is the difference in fonts. Over the past year and a half "Verified" dismantled many videos trying to imitate stories from reputable foreign media (among them twice featured and Euronews channel). The authors of such fakes do a good job of imitating the general style, colors and animations, but usually still make mistakes in the details - most often they choose the wrong font. This happened this time too: the differences are most noticeable in the spelling of the letters i, t, k, f, p and g, as well as the number 1.
The earliest post with a video allegedly from Euronews about the alleged Gallup poll “Verified” was found in the Telegram channel “Sheikh Tamir", which was caught on the distribution of fake photos and videos dozens of times. There, the entry appeared on December 15 at 12:40 Moscow time and received more than 123,000 views. Moreover, according to TGStat data, a little earlier they posted in this channel, and then deleted similar post. The likely reason for the deletion was the fact that the original publication showed the name of the person who sent the video. The fact that the video was sent by an anonymous subscriber is also indicated in the posts of others well acquaintances to our regular readers of Telegram channels that spread fakes: “V Hand of the Kremlin Z"(6500 views), "Shkvarka News" (3100) and "Shkvarka 2.0"(1100).
Thus, Russian federal television channels, political bloggers, authors of large Telegram channels, as well as ordinary Internet users disseminated information about a non-existent study from a fake video. It is unknown what percentage of Ukrainian Internet users actually followed Putin's press conference live.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook, Instagram and Threads, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: broadcast screenshot / vesti.ru
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