On August 22, 2024, messages were published on RuNet that an image of the Russian flag appeared on a huge spherical screen in the United States. Several photos and videos proved this. We have verified the authenticity of this news.
National Flag Day every year note in Russia on August 22. In 2024, on this day, messages went viral on social networks according to which a giant image of the Russian tricolor was shown in the American Las Vegas. For example, in the Telegram channel “Uncle Harry TV” (8000 views at the time of writing this analysis) posted a 12-second video with the caption: “Watch how Flag Day of the Russian Federation is celebrated in Las Vegas.” On August 26, a similar 10-second video was commented on by the Telegram channel “Sanya in Florida"(512,000 views): "Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Congratulations on the past Russian Flag Day. Western social networks smell of burning from the exploding farts of Ukrainian trolls.” Several similar videos and pictures were published on August 22 by the channel “Dear persimmon"(147,000 views). “Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, the MSG Sphere, the largest spherical screen in the world, was painted... Whatever you say, in Vegas they know how to celebrate the birthday of the Russian flag in a big way,” the post said. Similar publications can be found in more than a hundred Telegram channels, including “Release the Kraken!"(62,000 views), "Media station" (35,000), "Gagauz Republic" (11,000), etc. At the same time, in the channel "Russia 2.0"(50,000 views) suggested that the video published there may not be real: “We don’t know if it’s true or not, but it looks impressive!”
Photos and videos of the Russian flag in the United States went viral on VKontakte. Moreover, in one public they clarified that they were made during a vacation in Las Vegas Ekaterinburg woman, and in the other - resident of Chelyabinsk. The owners of many communities did not express doubts about the authenticity of the photographs (examples here, here And here), however there are posts where the images are called possible installation or photoshop. In addition, the pictures are also distributed in the English-speaking segment of social networks - as in Telegram (one of the posts has 5000 views), and in social networks X (290,000).
"Sphere" (Sphere at the Venetian Resort) is a concert venue, located in Paradise, a southern suburb of Las Vegas. The project, then known as MSG Sphere Las Vegas, was announced in 2018, and opened arena at the end of September 2023. According to official website, it is the world's largest spherical structure, standing more than 360 feet tall and boasting an external programmable LED screen of 580,000 square feet. For the first time, an external display was fully almost illuminated three months before opening, in honor of US Independence Day (July 4th).
In total, Verified found five different photos and videos allegedly confirming that in August 2024, on Russian Flag Day, the Russian tricolor was displayed at the Sphere. Among them are two photographs allegedly taken near the arena, and three videos lasting 5, 10 and 12 seconds.
"Checked" was not found in social networks Sphere no mention of the fact that on August 22 the Russian flag was shown on the screens. The American media did not write about this event either. In addition, that day, numerous Instagram* users shared their photos and videos of the Sphere, popular among locals and tourists (examples here, here, here, here And here), however, there were no images of the Russian flag among them.
Fact checkers of the project "Gvara Media" contacted contact the company for comment Sphere Entertainment Co., which owns and operates Sphere. The press service told journalists that the image (it is not specified which one of those spread across the Internet) is not real and that it was digitally processed.
Ukrainian fact checkers suggest that to create a 12-second fake video, the authors of the fake used a video published in TikTok account And YouTube channel Sphere in January 2024. There was no flag of the Russian Federation or symbols of other countries on it. However, the original video was slowed down. “Verified” compared the two videos and came to the same conclusion, since the shooting angle, street lighting and car movement are the same.
In addition, we found the original 10-second fake recording. Original footage appeared on the YouTube channel of user Ryan Odom on September 22, 2023. In the original video, the Sphere screen showed an emoji, not the Russian tricolor. When creating the fake, the voice-over sound was also changed.
The original sources of the two viral photos and the remaining 5-second “Verified” video could not be found.
The earliest publication about the demonstration of the Russian flag at Sphere, among those that Verified was able to track, was published on the evening of August 22. Thus, a post with a 12-second video appeared in the above-mentioned Telegram channel “Uncle Harry TV"at 19:00 Moscow time, when it was still 9 o'clock in the morning in Las Vegas. Based on the fact that the video captured the dark time of day, it turns out that in the American city the celebration should have taken place earlier than in Russia, that is, on the night of August 21-22. The other two videos and two photographs, according to our data, were first published at 19:01 Moscow time in the channel “Dear persimmon" According to description, this blog is run by editor-in-chief Russian edition "New.Media» Lara Rzhondovskaya.
Thus, on August 22, the Russian tricolor was not shown at the Sphere in Las Vegas, which was denied by the company that owns the arena. In addition, we and our colleagues managed to find the primary sources of two videos that served as the basis for the fakes. Considering that the remaining materials originally appeared with them in the same publication, there is no reason to consider the remaining photos and videos to be authentic.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: screenshot / social networks
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