Is it true that a comic book about the war with Ukraine is being sold in Russia, in which a Chechen fighter is depicted as Piglet?

In September 2024, news spread on social networks about a “Z-comic” that had appeared in Russian bookstores, featuring the characters from “Winnie the Pooh.” At the same time, Piglet is depicted as a Muslim. We decided to check the authenticity of these posts.

Since September 12, netizens have been posting pictures of a spread from an unnamed comic. The main roles are given to characters from “Winnie the Pooh”: Owl here is a general giving orders; blue-yellow bees - Ukrainians; Winnie the Pooh and Piglet are Russian (judging by the symbols on the uniform) military. At the same time, on the unloading of Piglet, a Chechen flag is drawn next to the Russian flag, and the piglet himself asks Winnie the Pooh to let him pray before the fight, which he does in the next picture. Users drew attention primarily to the character’s choice, which was offensive to Muslims—in Islam, a pig is considered an unclean animal. This comic was written about as Russian bloggers, so Ukrainian sites, and among the users who shared the pictures there is: supporters, so opponents war with Ukraine. In particular, a publicist spoke about Piglet from the comic about the war on Telegram Alexander Nevzorov (579,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), channels "Cotton swamp" (232,000) and "Rotten Advance | Kursk"(65,000). Users also shared these pictures X, Facebook, and forum "I Cried"

All the users who wrote about the comic cited the same three photographs as confirmation (some all at once, others one or two). The photographs show the same spread. On the left side is General Owl (at the bottom it is indicated that this is page No. 5), on the right side are Winnie the Pooh and Piglet preparing to fight the bees (page 6). The third picture is an enlarged part of the right side of the spread, focusing on Piglet saying a prayer.

“Verified” did not find either the cover or photographs of other pages of this comic.  In addition, there are no traces of binding on the fold of the sheet - most likely, the author of the photo is holding a folded sheet of paper in his hands on which the images are printed. If we assume that this is a central spread, then the comic, according to the numbering, should have five spreads. With such a position of the hand, the edges of other pages would inevitably be visible, but they are not noticeable in the photographs.

In addition, “Verified” studied the assortment of Russian bookselling sites and did not find such a comic.

The earliest publication with viral images that we were able to find was a post on the Telegram channel “News from the world of eternal struggle"(3,400 views), which appeared on September 12 at 17:38 Moscow time. “It is reported that such comics about a bear and a boar have appeared on the shelves in Russia,” the entry says, without specifying the source. Most of the publications in this channel are dedicated to migrants and residents of the North Caucasus republics, about whom the authors invariably speak in an offensive tone. At the same time, the channel writes with approval about the war in Ukraine, and calls the soldiers fighting on the side of the Russian Federation “Russian fighters.”

The comic, which depicts the Muslim Piglet, appeared two days after the conflict between Russian “military officers” and nationalists with the commander of the Chechen special forces “Akhmat” and the deputy head of the military-political department of the Russian Ministry of Defense Apti Alaudinov escalated. In August-September 2024, against the backdrop of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ invasion of the Kursk region, Alaudinov became one of the most prominent Russian generals in the media space. However, his comments about the fight between people from Chechnya in Anapa caused outrage part of the “military correspondents” who accused the commander of “Akhmat” of “covering up for his own.”

Thus, in Russian stores there is no comic book in which Piglet is depicted as a Muslim fighting on the side of the Russian Federation, and the drawing first appeared in the nationalist Telegram channel. Most likely, the drawing, offensive to Chechens and Muslims, was printed in a single copy.

Cover photo: social networks

Fake

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