A video has spread online, allegedly filmed in New York, where one of the advertising screens in the very center of the city allegedly showed the inscription “Crimea is Russia! 10 years together! We have verified the authenticity of this video.

The video began to spread in Telegram channels on March 18, 2024, on the tenth anniversary signing agreements on the “admission into Russia” of Crimea and Sevastopol. In one day, the video was shared by more than 200 Russian-language Telegram channels, receiving a total of more than 3 million views. An official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry wrote about the holiday video allegedly shown in Times Square Maria Zakharova (143,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), “Sanya in Florida"(491,000), "Uncle Slava"(188,000), Voblya (177,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(142,000), etc. In addition to Telegram, the recording was distributed in "VKontakte", "Yandex.Zen", YouTube, Instagram, X And "Odnoklassniki" The news also appeared in some Russian Media.

The viral video actually shows New York. By using Google Street View “Verified” was installed shooting point: This is the intersection of 7th Avenue and West 45th Street. There, at high altitude building Renaissance Hotel at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and West 47th Street - in one of the busiest locations in Manhattan, right in front of Times Square, and an advertising screen is located.

Advertising with the Russian tricolor and the slogan “Crimea is Russia!” in the middle of New York was supposed to attract the attention of citizens and tourists, but an eight-second video from Telegram is the only evidence of its demonstration that “Verified” was able to find in the public domain. Local media did not talk about the video, and Google, when searching in English, produces only two unique results: a tweet from a Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, which calls the video “another fake,” and a post from the pro-Russian Telegram channel “Il Russo"

On Instagram you can find a lot of photos and videos taken in Times Square March 18, and also the day before And the next day. Judging by these recordings, the screen we were interested in was broadcasting a Coca-Cola advertisement at that time, and not a video about the annexation of Crimea. On March 16, one of the Instagram users posted fast with a selection of photographs of this place over recent years - it follows from it that the popular soda has been advertised on this screen since 2013. Moreover, this advertising platform directly belongs to the Coca-Cola company. In 2017, the brand published video about the launch of an updated screen with thousands of moving LED panels that move in accordance with the displayed animation.

It is unlikely that Coca-Cola would voluntarily provide its screen for a congratulatory video about the “reunification” of Crimea with Russia, since the company had once already gotten into a scandal in connection with the question of the ownership of the peninsula. New Year's Eve 2016 Coca-Cola published on his page on VKontakte a map on which Crimea was included in the Russian Federation. About the incident wrote the world's largest media, and Ukrainian social network users called boycott the company's products. On the same day, representatives of the corporation apologized, explaining that the design of the card was carried out by a third-party agency without the knowledge of Coca-Cola management.

Another detail that raises doubts about the authenticity of the video published on Telegram: if you look closely at the advertising screen (for example, on Google Maps or video on YouTube), in its upper part it is easy to see the voluminous Coca-Cola logo. It is also visible in photographs of Instagram users, laid out both before and after March 18, but on the viral video no logo. Even if we assume that for some reason Coca-Cola decided to show a video about Crimea on its screen, it is unlikely that the company would dismantle the logo for the duration of the show and then reinstall it.

“Checked” analyzed still frames from the video on error rate (ELA) using the Forensically service (you can read more about this method of checking images for authenticity Here). While ELA has its limitations, the results indicate that it is likely that the Crimea map animation was digitally manipulated onto the original video. A similar approach to creating disinformation content has been used in pro-Kremlin Telegram channels before, including in videos allegedly filmed on the streets New York And others megacities.

Result of freeze frame analysis using the Forensically tool

The earliest “Verified” publication containing a viral video found appeared on March 18, 2024 at 10:41 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Cat Kostyan"(102,000 views). In the eastern United States it was 03:41 a.m., although video, judging by the signatures on social networks, allegedly captured the late evening of March 18, when “New York congratulated Crimea on the tenth anniversary of its return to its native harbor.”

Thus, the video commemorating the tenth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea was not shown on the huge screen in Times Square that day. Apparently, a congratulatory animation was inserted into the pre-shot video, superimposed on top of a Coca-Cola advertisement.

Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons