Is it true that after the arrest of Pavel Durov, the UAE froze the purchase of 80 fighter jets from France?

At the end of August 2024, the media reported a harsh reaction from the authorities of a Middle Eastern country to the detention of the founder of Telegram, whose headquarters are located in Dubai. We have checked whether this information is correct.

As reported, the United Arab Emirates at the end of August 2024 suspended the agreement to purchase 80 Rafale multirole fighters from France. The freezing of the deal, the value of which, according to various estimates, ranges from $17 to $20 billion, was allegedly a response to the detention of the founder and CEO of the Telegram messenger Pavel Durov, who, among others, has passports from both countries. The viral publications also spoke about fears that had arisen in France that the Middle Eastern partner could completely stop military-technical cooperation with Paris because of the case against the entrepreneur.

This news was spread by Russian-language media from Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Belarus and other countries. It was also widely shared by Telegram channels, including “Ax Live"(762,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Nevzorov"(545,000), "Insider UA"(473,000), "Newsach/Dvach" (199,000) and "Falcon"(183,000).

Durov was detained on Saturday, August 24, at Paris Le Bourget airport, where he arrived on a private plane from Azerbaijan. After four days, which the founder of Telegram spent under arrest in Paris, the court brought charges against him on six counts, but let go on bail and forbidden to leave French territory. Local media notedthat in the context of the case the authorities consider the entrepreneur as a French citizen; he also has There is passports of Russia, the UAE and the Caribbean state of Saint Kitts and Nevis.

About the deal between the UAE and France for the purchase of 80 multi-role Rafale fighters with a total value of €17 billion it became known at the end of 2021. A few months later, the Emirates made an advance, and deliveries, according to open sources, were supposed to begin in 2027 and end in 2031.

“Verified” did not find any information in authoritative foreign sources about the freezing of this transaction in August 2024. Durov’s case, however, was not ignored by official Abu Dhabi. At the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, that they are closely monitoring the process, and have asked the French government to provide the entrepreneur, as a citizen of the UAE, with all the necessary consular services. Emirati officials made no other statements on this topic.

On a global scale, two accounts on the social network X became major disseminators of the news that due to Durov’s detention the deal between the UAE and France was frozen. It was published in the evening Moscow time on August 27 @stairwayto3dom (7.7 million views), and at night - @KimDotcom (2.8 million). Both only mentioned the suspension of the agreement, but did not provide details or the source of information.

Another user, @ivan_8848, posted tweet (374,000 views), in which the news of the frozen deal was accompanied by a story from Al Jazeera.

This video is 1:41 min long. not on the official one website TV channel, nor on his accounts V social networks. At the same time, several details attract attention:

• UAE spending on the purchase of French fighters is estimated at $10 billion, while authoritative media, including herself Al Jazeera in 2021, they announced almost twice the amount;

• The video that has been distributed across networks is completely “silent” - it is accompanied only by superimposed music, and all information is provided in the form of subtitles. At the same time, Al Jazeera videos, as a rule, contain natural noise and human voices;

• The story quotes political analyst Marwan Bichar on the deal between the UAE and France. In fact, these shots are taken from another interview expert on the Al Jazeera channel, which aired on August 22 and was dedicated to the election race in the United States.

• The font in the subtitles from the viral video, although similar to the one used in the original videos, is still slightly different. This is most noticeable in the letters a, t and g.

All three X users mentioned above have previously been caught posting false information. So, anonymous blogger @stairwayto3dom posted on his page fakes about the actions of the Houthis in the Red Sea, and the former owner of file sharing services Megaupload and Mega Keith Dotcom, who owns the @KimDotcom account, caught on the publication of false information about the war in Ukraine and support Kremlin narratives. The user @ivan_8848, who distributed the fake Al Jazeera video, appeared in one of analysis "Verified" as a primary source of disinformation related to Israel's war against Hamas.

Although these English-speaking bloggers contributed the widespread dissemination of fake news about the UAE and France in the media in different languages, they were not its primary sources. According to TGStat, a text message about freezing the deal first appeared on Telegram on August 27 at 19:34 Moscow time on the channel “Military observer"(76,000 views). This channel repeatedly featured in analyzes “Verified” as a source of misinformation. The fake video from Al Jazeera was first posted 44 minutes later on the channel “Cat Kostyan"(98,000). He also Not once distributed fake videos under the guise of real stories prepared by reputable foreign TV channels. After this, the news began to spread on Telegram and among the military foreign language channels, after which it spread to other social networks.

Cover photo: Wikimedia Commons

Fake

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