At the end of May 2024, a video went viral in the media and social networks in which an American official stated: in the Russian city there are many military targets and almost no civilian ones, so the United States will not be against the use of American weapons for attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the border areas of the Russian Federation. We have verified the authenticity of this video.
The recording of Matthew Miller's alleged performance lasts 49 seconds. and is distributed in two versions: with Russian subtitles and without them. The video shows a certain press conference at which the official representative The US State Department answers a journalist’s question and allegedly says that there are “virtually no civilians left” in Belgorod and that “it is full of military installations.”
According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, about 300 posts about the viral video and Miller’s alleged statement appeared on Telegram, which in total received more than 2 million views. For example, a media manager wrote about this Kristina Potupchik (20,000 views), “voenkor” Alexander Kots (10,000, post deleted), Notepad edition (twice: 65,000 And 28,000, second post deleted), channels Colonelcassad (266,000), "Ne.Sugar"(239,000), "Observer" (173,000), "Ukraine.ru"(110,000), "What happened?"(75,000), etc.
Head of the Russian Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC) Valery Fadeev replied to Miller's alleged statement, saying that the US State Department spokesman was lying. “We keep records of all attacks on civilian objects and the population. And in the Belgorod region today it is like this: 18,000 apartments and houses have already been destroyed or damaged, more than 300 social facilities and about 200 industrial facilities for peaceful purposes have been damaged, 175 people have been killed, almost 800 injured. I don’t particularly expect that this information will be conveyed to the cynic from the State Department, but the truth is ours in any case,” Fadeev said. About the comment of the head of the HRC told State news agency TASS. In a conversation with News.ru, member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Rogozin commented Miller's statement circulated as follows: “As far as we know, there are no civilians left in Washington, New York, Berlin, Paris and Warsaw, not to mention Kyiv. There are solid military installations there.”
At the beginning of the video, Miller is shown addressing a journalist (according to the subtitles, his name is John), and then the following dialogue occurs between them:
Journalist: “You have already stated the US position on this issue, but you have not said what you think about other countries. Ten states have already allowed the use of their weapons to hit targets deep within Russian territory. Will they be able to hit military targets?
Miller: “We all see how the situation is developing. We need to draw a clear line between what is a civilian object and what is not. We are aware that there are virtually no civilians left in Belgorod, a Russian city located approximately 45 miles from Kharkov, Ukraine. At the moment, it is almost full of military targets, and we are seeing the same thing begin in neighboring regions. It is necessary to make it clear to Russia that this is unacceptable. So we will support our allies in whatever they decide to do, and perhaps help those on the fence make the right choice.”
According to the video, while the journalist was asking the question, the American official managed to change clothes. At the beginning of the recording, Miller is wearing a white shirt and a blue tie, and he responds already wearing a blue shirt with a purple tie. In addition, the movements of the official’s lips do not always coincide with the words he speaks.
"Verified" suggested that the viral video was edited from recordings of two different press conferences, and examined broadcasts of daily press briefings available on YouTube channel US State Department. Miller in blue tie spoke May 9, 2024 - the fragment corresponding to the first third of the viral video (00:00–00:16) begins at the time stamp 30:18. However, the journalist, whom, according to the transcript, Miller named Josh, asked not about Belgorod and Ukraine, but about Rafah and Israel. Moreover, the question was longer than what was asked in the viral video, so the authors of the editing had to cut off the extra footage of the journalist, and also change the movements of his lips using a neural network. Original question sounded So:
“I wanted to clarify something you said at the very beginning. I think I heard you say that there are certain types of military systems that we will not provide to Israel for use in the Rafah campaign. Does the President's statement preclude the supply of these or similar weapons to Israel for use in other areas during this time period?”
Wearing a blue shirt with a purple tie Miller communicated with the press during a briefing on May 28. By comparing the movements of the head and hands, Verified found that the remainder of the viral video (00:16–00:49) corresponds to the fragment that begins in the official broadcast around the mark 30:03. In the original, the official answered questions from a correspondent from Al Arabiya. Nadi Bilbassi - they, as in the first case, touched on the topic of the military conflict in the Gaza Strip and the humanitarian crisis that has developed in that region. The journalist also asked to comment on the opinion that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. In response to Miller named humanitarian situation is dire and stated:
“We did not and do not believe that Israel is committing genocide. Nothing they (the Israelis - editor's note) have done meets the legal definition of this concept, and we have seen them take steps to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid. We saw them take measures to try to minimize harm to civilians. As we said when we published National Security Memo 20, there are Israeli lawyers who are integrated into the targeting processes and have the ability to issue binding orders to block attacks on certain targets. So all this is taken into account when making such a legal verdict. We simply do not fundamentally consider their actions to be such and we do not think that the facts support this at all. This does not mean that there was not enormous human suffering. Of course they are. And this is largely the fault of Hamas, which continues to hide behind civilians. And of course, much of this is the fault of Israel, which must take additional steps to minimize harm to civilians and reduce their suffering. And that’s what we’ll continue to push for from him.”
According to the transcripts, neither Miller nor the journalists spoke about Belgorod nor 9, nor 28 May. But one of the questions concerned Kharkov, mentioned in the fake, or rather, blow at the Epicenter construction hypermarket in this city - as a result of the attack on May 25 died 19 people. By versions Russian intelligence, the Ukrainian Armed Forces stored weapons in the building, there is no confirmation of this information. “In this context, we have heard very strong voices from allies regarding the lifting of all arms sanctions. The NATO Secretary General said the time has come to do this. The Baltic countries say it's time to do it. Poland talks about this. Britain is talking about it. The US Congress is talking about this. This is what the Helsinki Commission says. Are they all wrong? — asked question journalist. In response to Miller said, that the United States continues to see Russia launch deliberate attacks on civilian targets where there are no Ukrainian military personnel, so the United States will continue to support Ukraine by supplying it with weapons. “As for our policy, I spoke about it last week and the Secretary of State spoke about it. Look, our policy is that we do not encourage or support strikes outside the borders of Ukraine,” the State Department speaker emphasized then. However, soon the American press appeared messagesthat US President Joe Biden secretly (and with reservations) allowed Kyiv to strike Russia with American weapons.
Using a neural network, the authors of the editing changed the words not only of the journalist, but also of Miller. If you look closely, in some fragments of the fake recording you can even see how, due to the imperfection of the technology used, the position of the State Department representative’s teeth changes.
We found the earliest publication with a fabricated video among those that “Verified” was able to track in the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel “Freshness"(5900 views). There, the post appeared on May 30, 2024 at 13:09 Moscow time, but was deleted 24 minutes later. At 13:10 a similar entry was posted by the channel “IA Red Spring"(1100 views). Previously this news agency and channel "Freshness» have repeatedly become disseminators of disinformation related to the United States and Ukraine.
Note that Kots deleted his post about Miller’s false statement and brought Apologies for publishing unverified information. “The US Secretary of State did not say that there were no civilians left in Belgorod. The video was generated by a neural network. But the statements from all sides in recent days are so monstrous that even a fake is perceived as an ordinary statement. Life is the best playwright,” wrote the military correspondent. Called the recording of Miller's speech a fake and the pro-Kremlin channel Fake Control, whose description reads: “We separate the truth from the fakes.” The authors of the resource also reported that the video was created using a neural network, and stated that the fake was published by “Telegram channels associated with Ukraine.” Fake Control did not specify which channels (for example, those mentioned in this analysis) are associated with Ukraine.
Thus, administrators of large Russian Telegram channels distributed a fake video with words that the representative of the US State Department did not say. Accordingly, the head of the Human Rights Council Fadeev and Senator Rogozin commented on the fictitious statement of the American speaker.
Cover photo: video screenshot @StateDept (YouTube)
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