In May 2024, social media users posted an advertising poster allegedly produced by Trenitalia. The picture depicted the founder of the Wagner PMC and the President of Iran, and also included the slogan: “It’s safer by train.” We found out whether such posts are true.
On May 29, the picture was published in social networks X and yours Telegram channel ally of Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny, host of the YouTube channel “Popular Politics” Dmitry Nizovtsev. “Italian railway advertising with Prigozhin and Raisi. The text on the picture: “Trust me!... It’s safer by train!”, the activist’s tweet says. The image also went viral on Facebook, where some posts typed tens and even hundreds reposts.
Founder of PMC "Wagner" Evgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash over the Tver region in August last year, two months after he organized mutiny against the command of the Russian army. The helicopter carrying Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi crashed May 19, 2024, when the Iranian delegation was returning from a trip to Azerbaijan.
"Verified" studied official website Trenitalia and the carrier’s social media pages (Facebook, Instagram), but did not find a viral image there. In May, the company posted advertising materials on the Internet, but they were noticeably different from the picture with Prigozhin and Raisi. The largest Italian media did not talk about such provocative advertising either.
The earliest publication we found containing a collage with Prigogine, Raisi and the TrenItalia logo, appeared May 22 at 14:12 Moscow time on the Italian-language forum Orologi & Passioni. There is no comment on the origin of the image in the post, however, in the same thread, other users posted demotivators, memes and other humorous content.
The spread of the collage outside the Italian-speaking segment of the Internet, apparently, was facilitated by the publication, posted on Reddit about an hour later. The caption under the picture reads: “Fake Italian Railways (Trenitalia) advert that went viral in Italy.”
This entry was published in the channel NAFO — an online movement that appeared in May 2022, which aims to counter the Kremlin propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine, raise funds for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and maintain the necessary level of awareness of military operations in the West. Activists’ “weapons” are memes, jokes and online activity. At the same time, NAFO has been repeatedly criticized for shitposting, bullying opponents And use of hate speech.
Thus, the Italian railway company did not release advertising with portraits of Prigozhin and Raisi under the slogan about the safety of train travel. The collage, apparently, was created by a user of an Italian forum with memes and demotivators.
Cover photo: social networks
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