Is it true that the mayor of Denver called a man a “fucking Ukrainian animal” for shouting “Glory to Ukraine!”?

 Material updated ↓ 

In January 2024, news spread on social networks that the head of an American city allegedly insulted a journalist who interrupted the official with a Ukrainian slogan during a press conference. We checked if this story is real.

Numerous publications have reported that Denver's mayor Mike Johnston at the end of his weekly press conference with journalists on the social network X (formerly Twitter) named the person "fucking Ukrainian animals» (fucking Ukrainian animal). The mayor allegedly did this after the man interrupted him by shouting “Glory to Ukraine!” Authors of some posts thinkthat this situation shows the real attitude of many Americans towards Ukrainians. Some at the same time notethat Johnston - representative US Democratic Party, which is more active than its Republican opponents supports further allocation of military aid to Kyiv.

Similar recordings appeared on the social networks of the Tsargrad TV channel (Telegram, "VKontakte" And "Classmates"), in the TV presenter’s Telegram channels Ruslana Ostashko (112,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), edition "Ukraine.ru"(137,000), radio host Armen Gasparyan (74,000), showman Oscar Kucera (33,000), as well as in the channels "Sanya in Florida"(456,000), "Three heroes and Zelensky drug addict"(191,000), Zergulio (190,000), "Petya the First"(97,000), "Scott Ritter on Telegram"(90,000), "Alexander Semchenko"(91,000), "Mriya"(68,000), Lomovka (64,000), "Prohibited Ukraine"(44,000), "Russian format" (42,000) and "Vladimir Rogov"(38,000). Similar posts can be found in public pages in “VKontakte", social networks X and on some Russian-speaking news websites.

All the publications found by “Verified” lack links to primary sources of information, and as evidence, a video recording of a voice chat on the social network X and a screenshot from a news report that allegedly talks about the scandal are given. Below we will analyze these two materials separately.

Video

The viral seven-second video, judging by the interface, is a recording audio rooms at X called CPR Denver News. It is probably assumed that the conference was organized by Colorado Public Radio, although on social networks it is simply called CPR Newsbecause radio broadcasts not just for Denver, but for the entire state. The frame shows the profiles of four participants in the conversation - among them Johnston and a certain person whose profile says photo Monument to the independence of Ukraine and the Ukrainian flag. The following conversation is heard in the video:

- Of course, we must ask questions...
- Glory to Ukraine!
- Sorry, guys. Sorry, [this is] a fucking Ukrainian animal. Sorry.

"Verified" didn't find it traces or mentions of such a press conference in any American media (including radio station CPR), nor on Johnston's social media.

The other two participants in the conversation, according to the recording, were journalist CPR Andrew Kenny And member Colorado House of Representatives Javier Mabry. We also did not find any information in the profiles of these two people about their participation in such an audio room. Verified sent requests for comment to Kenny and Marby but had not received a response at the time of publication of this text.

Updated January 23, 2024. Journalist Andrew Kenny, in response to Verified's request for comment, stated that he was not the host of such an audio room: “This is fake. There was no such event or press conference in which I participated. I've never interviewed Mike Johnston."

Previously the authors of anti-Ukrainian fake videos repeatedly used neural networks, to fake voices of the actors. Fact checkers from the Vox Ukraine project assumedthat in the case of Johnston’s crude remark, the attackers could have used the site ElevenLabs, which uses artificial intelligence to convert text into speech. Our Ukrainian colleagues checked the viral video through the tool AI Speech Classifier, which allows you to determine whether the audio track was created in ElevenLabs. An analysis of the mayor's vote showed that the probability of this is 98%. “Verified” got the same result.

Screenshot

In addition to recording the audio room, a screenshot of the TV channel will be distributed on social networks Denver 7, whose logo is visible in the lower right corner of the frame. The news about Johnston was allegedly reported as Breaking, and the text read: "Mayor Mike Johnston: 'F... Ukrainian animal.' The mayor of Denver made an offensive remark during an online conference at X.”

“Verified” did not find such news on any website, nor on Denver 7 social networks (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube And X). We also looked at many of the channel's stories to compare the font in the viral image with what the media outlet actually uses, since fake authors almost always fake this design element with errors. It turned out that in the distributed screenshot some letters differ (most noticeably in a, r and g), and the quote was also incorrectly formatted (the channel places them in quotation marks).

Fact checkers from "Vox Ukraine"" And StopFake sent inquiries to the Denver 7 editorial office asking them to confirm or deny the publication of such news. Executive producer of digital projects of the TV channel Stephanie Butzer confirmed that the image being circulated is a fake: “It’s fake. If you look closely at the bottom third (the red stripe at the bottom), you can see how the words were photoshopped by someone outside our newsroom.”

Thus, there is no reliable evidence on the Internet that the mayor of Denver called anyone a fucking Ukrainian animal for shouting “Glory to Ukraine!” The viral recording was most likely created using neural networks, and the distributed screenshot of an American TV channel was falsified by unknown persons using a photo editor. In addition, the earliest known “Verified” appearance of these materials took place on January 10 at 13:55 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Sheikh Tamir"(136,000 views). Previously this channel dozens of times published fakes and became their primary source.

Cover photo: social networks

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

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