At the end of January 2024, posts circulated on social networks that the President of Ukraine announced the country’s readiness to become a new American state. The proof is a screenshot of the news on the Ukrainian website. We checked whether Zelensky came up with such an initiative.
In January 2024, the migration crisis worsened in the United States, causing Texas Governor Greg Abbott to installed There is barbed wire on the border with Mexico within the state. The US Supreme Court found Abbott's decision unfounded and decided remove the barriers, but the politician stated, that “this is not the end” and that he will continue to protect the borders. The heads of another 25 states supported the position of the Texas leadership in disagreements with the federal government on measures to combat illegal immigration. Many Russian propagandists And Z-bloggers, covering these events, announced a new civil war was brewing in the United States.
Against this background, on January 26, Russian-language Telegram channels began to distribute a screenshot of a note on the website of the Ukrainian news program “TSN” with the headline: “Zelensky’s evening address: Ukraine is ready to join the United States instead of Texas.” According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, a total of 160 posts on this topic on Telegram received about 1.6 million views. Similar publications were posted by the channels “Uncle Slava"(184,000 views), "Putin on Telegram"(174,000), Voblya (152,000), "Bullet"(131,000), "From the scene"(67,000), Tezkor Yangiliklar (55,000, post in Uzbek), “Communications center" (50,000), "Russia 2.0"(49,000), Nina Vatt (43,000), "Conflict"(41,000), "Uncle Slava on Telegram"(40,000), "Thoughts Okhlobystin" (31,000), "Hammer" (29,000), etc. In addition, the TV channels "Constantinople" And "360", edition "Pravda.ru" And other news sites, as well as numerous publics and users "VKontakte"
The viral screenshot indicates that the news was published on the TSN website at 19:43 Kyiv time on January 26 and was based on Zelensky’s daily evening address. At the same time, in his Telegram channel, the president published this appeal is only at 20:54, on official website — at 21:01, at social networks X - at 21:50. In the original video, Zelensky is wearing a different sweatshirt (instead of the Ukrainian flag, it shows the country’s coat of arms), and the video was filmed from a different point in the politician’s office.
"Verified" didn't find it news with the headline “Ukraine is ready to join the United States instead of Texas” on the TSN website. The screenshot shows the name of the author - Maxim Zhuravel, but page this journalist does not have such a note for January 26, 2024 (it is also missing in copies page archived that evening). At the same time, we discovered material with the same photo on the cover and a similar headline: “Zelensky’s evening address: what the president said important.” This article was posted on the site a day earlier, but the time of publication (19:43) coincides with that indicated on the viral image. The original text provided a retelling of the president’s video message on January 25, where he spoke about the soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine and the professional holiday of SBU cyber specialists. Zelensky did not make any statements about a hypothetical joining the United States at that time. As for the photograph of the Ukrainian president that accompanies the news, this freeze frame his evening address following the results of January 13: then Zelensky also spoke Texas did not mention the National Guard.
“Verified” could not find a statement that Ukraine is ready and/or seeking to join the United States instead of Texas in other reputable Ukrainian media, as well as on website President of the country and in his official accounts in social networks.
The earliest publication with a fake screenshot among those discovered by “Verified” appeared on January 26 at 20:28 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “EYE."(12,000 views). It is noteworthy that posts on this topic were published earlier, but were of a satirical nature. For example, on the same day at 16:07 a channel with fictitious news "Pussy“(168,000 views) wrote: “Zelensky said that Ukraine is ready to take the place of Texas in the United States.” A little later, at 17:30, the pro-Kremlin channel Mash (851,000 views) reported about the same statement by the President of Ukraine - it was included in a selection of news from the United States (the fact that all this news was made up could be learned from the hidden note “Especially for readers with serious faces - this is all a joke”). Subsequently post Mash distributed other authors, and not all from them they made a clarification about the humorous nature of the text. In addition, similar posts without a joke mark appeared in the channel “TalipoV 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞"(57,000 views), which has previously been repeatedly distributed fakes, and in the channel "Shevtsov's Bulletin» (124,000), where memes are published mixed with real news.
Thus, Zelensky never stated that Ukraine was ready to join the United States instead of Texas, and the screenshot of the recording on the TSN website distributed on the Internet was fabricated. Given the high quality of the image and the completely matching font, most likely the attacker changed the title and date of the real news through the site page code. At the same time, the source of inspiration for creating this fake could have been numerous jokes on the same topic that appeared a little earlier.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: website President of Ukraine
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