In February 2024, Telegram spread a video about the unusual action of French farmers who expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the government spends money on helping Kyiv, and not its own agriculture. We checked the veracity of this video.
The video lasted a little more than a minute on Telegram on February 9-11. According to posts, Ukrainian diplomats called on French farmers not to participate in protest. Those, in turn, said that “Ukraine has no right to ask or demand anything from the French,” and doused the Embassy of Ukraine in Paris with manure.
According to the TGSTAT service, the posts with this video collected about 6 million views. Among other videos, channels shared "Live broadcast"(682,000 views at the time of writing this analysis),"#Montyan!"(251 000),"Russia now"(250,000),"The goat screamed"(222 000),"Heaven is"(188 000),"Truthfulness"(188 000),"Uncle Glory"(186 000),"Tucker Carlson in Russian"(165,000),"Sheikh Tamir"(153,000),"Kostyan Cat - Official Channel"(140 000) and"Gasparyan"(115 000).
Since January throughout Europe, including in France, mass protests of farmers have been held. The reasons for these shares different: In some countries, they are dissatisfied with the pressure of Brussels, in others they require the protection of local manufacturers from cheap imports (including from Ukraine), thirdly they ask to preserve subsidies and subsidies for agriculture.
In English subtitles, the video says:
The call of the Ukrainian embassy to complete the protests angered French farmers. The Embassy of Ukraine recently called on French farmers to complete protests. The official letter of the diplomatic mission said: "The people of Ukraine regrets that the French farmers, first encountered economic difficulties, turned out 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. Arno Russo, the head of the largest agrarian association - the National Federation of Trade Unions of Farmers, shared a negative reaction to the letter: “I would recommend to the Ukrainian embassy to take care of Ukraine. I would not advise anything to the people who have been living for two years. Ukraine has no right to ask or demand anything from the French. Keep your opinion to you "
The video mimifies the EURONEWS TV channel under the news story, whose logo throughout the video is located in the upper right corner. However, neither on site this media, not in his social networks (Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube) There is no such report. EURONEWS editor -in -chief 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 near the Embassy of Ukraine, only the relevant personnel are shown. How found out Facts from the Lead Stories project, this is a video with dousing a certain building manure appeared On the network no later than December 2023 and then spread without mentioning the Ukrainian diplomatic mission. Thanks to the Google Street View service, it was possible to find out that the building that fell on the recording is not an embassy of Ukraine in Paris, but an administrative building in Dijon.
As for the screenshot shown in the viral plot, it could not be found on site Ukrainian diplomatic mission in the French capital. The signature of the ambassador of Ukraine to France Vadim Omelchenko differs from the one that Used In original documents. In a commentary for Lead Stories, Ukrainian diplomats said the letter from the video was fabricated.
Finally, AFP agency found outthat the trade union leader of Rousseau in the framework of the protest campaign of farmers did not give the comments attributed to him about Ukraine. This was confirmed, in particular, in the National Federation of Trade Unions of Farmers. The creators of the viral video used a fragment ether BFM television channel with the participation of Russo, which was filmed on February 2. The letter, allegedly published five days later, he did not mention.
The earliest publication with a viral video, which was able to detect "verified" appeared In the Telegram channel "Denacification UA" on February 8 at 14:36 Moscow time. This channel is already more than ten times was caught on the spread of inaccurate information.
Thus, the viral posts that laid the basis of the video was not prepared by the EURONEWS channel, and the events described in it never took place. For the Ukrainian embassy flooded by manure, the creators of the video issued the building in Dijon, and the statements of the diplomatic mission and the French trade union leader were forged.
Photo on the cover: Wikimedia Commons
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- False authorities. How BBC has become a favorite brand for the creators of fake videos
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