In February 2024, a video spread on Telegram about an unusual action by French farmers who expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the government was spending money to help Kyiv, and not its own agriculture. We have verified the veracity of this video.

The video, just over a minute long, went viral on Telegram on February 9–11. As reported in the posts, Ukrainian diplomats called on French farmers not to participate in the protests. They, in turn, declared that “Ukraine has no right to ask or demand anything from the French,” and doused the Ukrainian Embassy in Paris with manure.

According to the TGStat service, posts with this video collected about 6 million views. Among others, the video was shared by the channels “Live broadcast"(682,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "#Montan!"(251,000), "Russia now" (250,000), "The goat screamed"(222,000), "Heavenly"(188,000), "Truthfulness"(188,000), "Uncle Slava"(186,000), "Tucker Carlson in Russian"(165,000), "Sheikh Tamir" (153,000), "Kot Kostyan - official channel" (140,000) and "Gasparyan"(115,000).

Since January, massive protests by farmers have been taking place across Europe, including in France. Reasons for these actions different: in some countries they are dissatisfied with the pressure from Brussels, in others they demand protection of local producers from cheap imports (including from Ukraine), in others they ask to maintain subsidies and subsidies for agriculture.

The English subtitles for the video say:

The Ukrainian embassy's call to end the protests has angered French farmers. The Ukrainian Embassy recently called on French farmers to end their protests. The official letter from the diplomatic mission said: “The people of Ukraine regret that French farmers, faced with economic difficulties for the first time, turned against the French government and the people of Ukraine.” Ukrainians called on French farmers to follow their example and unite in the name of their homeland. Arnaud Rousseau, head of the largest agricultural association, the National Federation of Farmers' Unions, shared his negative reaction to the letter: “I would recommend that the Ukrainian Embassy take care of Ukraine. I wouldn’t recommend anything to the people I’ve been living off of for two years. Ukraine has no right to ask or demand anything from the French. Keep your opinions to yourself"

The video mimics a news story from the Euronews TV channel, whose logo is located in the upper right corner throughout the video. However, neither website this media outlet, nor on its social networks (Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube) there is no such report. Euronews News Editor Peter Barabas reported dpa agency that the channel never released this video.

It is noteworthy that the video itself does not say anything directly about the action at the Ukrainian Embassy, it only shows the relevant footage. How found out fact checkers from the Lead Stories project, this is a video of pouring manure on a certain building appeared on the Internet no later than December 2023 and was then distributed without mentioning the Ukrainian diplomatic mission. Thanks to the Google Street View service, it was possible to find out that the building included in the recording is not the Ukrainian Embassy in Paris, but an administrative building in Dijon.

On the left is a screenshot of the viral video, on the right is a Google Street View screenshot with a view of the Ukrainian Embassy in France. Photo: Lead Stories

As for the screenshot of the letter shown in the viral story, it could not be found on website Ukrainian diplomatic mission in the French capital. The signature of the Ukrainian Ambassador to France Vadim Omelchenko differs from the one used in the original documents. In a commentary for Lead Stories, Ukrainian diplomats stated that the letter from the video was fabricated.

Finally, AFP found outthat trade union leader Russo did not make the comments attributed to him about Ukraine as part of the protest campaign of farmers. This was confirmed, in particular, by the National Federation of Farmers' Unions. The creators of the viral video used a fragment ether channel BFM with the participation of Russo, which was filmed on February 2. He did not mention the letter, which allegedly came out five days later.

The earliest publication with a viral video that “Verified” was able to detect, appeared in the Telegram channel “Denazification UA” on February 8 at 14:36 Moscow time. This channel has already been used more than ten times was caught on the dissemination of false information.

Thus, the video that formed the basis of the viral posts was not prepared by the Euronews TV channel, and the events described in it never occurred. The creators of the video passed off a building in Dijon as the Ukrainian embassy filled with manure, and the statements of the diplomatic mission and the French trade union leader were falsified.

Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons