In early January 2025, a video circulated on social networks showing how the hosts of a news program in the United States allegedly joked about the deaths of men in Ukraine. We have verified the authenticity of the viral video.
The 22-second recording being distributed, as stated on social networks, is a fragment of the broadcast of the American television channel MSNBC, whose presenters allegedly laughed at the large losses of the male population of Ukraine. For example, Telegram channel "Ne.Sugar” (292,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) commented on the video as follows: “American presenters mock the deaths of Ukrainian men. In a report about how Ukrainian refugees from Poland are trying to get permission from the outgoing Biden administration to move to the United States, the anchors asked the question: “Where are all the men?”
- Are there any men there at all? I only saw one man and 25 women.
- They're all dead.
- Oh no!
— I call a spade a spade.
“You shouldn’t have said that!”
According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, at least 250 similar Russian-language posts appeared on Telegram, which in total received more than 2.2 million views. Among the most popular are channel recordings Colonelcassad (222,000 views), "Russia now"(205,000), "Putin on Telegram"(188,000), "Bullet"(91,000), "Cat Kostyan"(78,000), "Voenndelo (Military Affairs)" (64,000) and "Military observer"(57,000). You can also find such publications on VKontakte (examples here, here, here, here And here), as well as on the portal "I cried"and others websites.
In the lower right corner of the viral video is the MSNBC logo, and the caption at the bottom of the frame states that Ukrainian refugees are desperate to get to the United States. According to the location indication in the upper left corner, the report was filmed in the capital of Poland. “They wait and wait and wait again, hoping to be among the 100,000 Ukrainian refugees that the Biden administration has promised to accept,” says the voiceover, after which the action moves to the studio, where the dialogue given at the beginning of this analysis takes place between the presenters.
White House statedthat the United States plans to accept up to 100,000 refugees from Ukraine back in March 2022, and about the fulfillment of this promise by the American authorities reported just a few months after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion - in July 2022. As for the TV channel’s report from Warsaw, “Verified” found its recording on the MSNBC YouTube channel, where the video was published still April 3, 2022.
The video is over two minutes long and does not show the hosts from the viral recording laughing in the studio. In the original, NBC News correspondent Josh Lederman speaks with both US Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski and several refugees and their relatives standing in line at the embassy entrance to apply for US visas. In addition, more than a dozen men can be seen in the original report.
The TV presenters appearing in the second half of the video we are interested in are named Alia Horges, Bob Herzog and Sheila Gray - they host a news program on the WKRC-TV channel (Local 12), broadcasting in Cincinnati. Using a reverse search using the “Verified” screenshot, I found out that Gray is on his Facebook posted A similar passage is still on January 31, 2024.
In Gray's version, the plot is not shown in full, but Ukraine and refugees are not mentioned in any way, and at the beginning of the video there are footage of elderly people dancing. The fact is that in January 2024 on the Internet got infected video, removed retirement community Primrose Retirement Community, which show the "Grey-haired Swifties" - a group of elderly fans of singer Taylor Swift. They danced to support the Kansas City Chiefs football team, where Swift's boyfriend Travis Kelce plays. The video shows about 20 people, the vast majority of whom are women. It was this disproportion that the WKRC-TV anchor explained by saying that statistically men live less than women and die earlier, causing laughter among his colleagues.
Thus, unknown persons edited two videos from different TV channels, one of which was not related to Ukraine. The earliest publication with a fake among those that “Verified” was able to track appeared on January 7, 2025 at 11:40 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Odessa for victory!"(6500 views), which repeatedly mentioned in our analyzes of misinformation and became the primary source of fakes. There the video was immediately with Russian-language subtitles.
Previously, the authors of various fakes have repeatedly used the MSNBC channel logo. Among them are false stories that Pornhub passed on income of former porn actress Mia Khalifa in favor of Israel, which actor Danny Trejo refused cooperate with Vladimir Zelensky, since the Office of the President of Ukraine demanded a rollback, and that the MSNBC presenter started crying, having learned about Elon Musk’s desire to buy this channel. In addition, “Verified” has more than once examined similar fabricated videos in which American TV presenters allegedly mock losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces And refugee problems from Ukraine.
Cover photo: collage "Verified" / MSNBC / WKRC-TV
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