In January 2025, news appeared on social networks that Danish parliamentarian Carsten Hönge appealed to Russia with a request to prevent the seizure of Greenland by the United States. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.

1On January 0, Russian-language Telegram channels began distributing a screenshot of a post allegedly published on Facebook by Folketing (Denmark Parliament) member Carsten Hönge. This text, written in Danish, said: “In a situation of extreme escalation and tension, we need to take extreme measures and seek help from Russia to solve this problem. I am confident that our request will be heard, because Russia will not allow Greenland to become part of the United States. This is just as unprofitable for Russia as it is for us.” Some Russian media wrote about this, in particular, Lenta.ru, "Vesti.ru" And "Arguments and facts", as well as numerous Telegram channels, for example "Pozdnyakov 3.0"(413,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Solovyov"(265,000), "Russia now • news"(238,000), "Uncle Slava"(200,000), "Ostashko! Important" (163,000), "Pool N3"(138,000), etc.

At the end of December 2024, US President-elect Donald Trump statedthat for Washington, ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity. Later he even didn't rule it outthat the Danish island would be taken by force. January 7 Greenland visited Trump's son - as he said himself, on a private visit. Against this background, Denmark increased expenses to defend the island, the kingdom’s authorities declared the unity of their lands, and the Prime Minister of Greenland (the island has the status of a self-governing territory) Mute Egede said: “We are not for sale and will never be for sale.”

Deputy Carsten Hönge indeed exists: He represents the opposition Socialist People's Party in the Danish Parliament. He repeatedly spoke out on the issue of the status of Greenland and proposed autonomy to declare independence and then a union with Denmark, “based on equality and democracy.” Hönge also commented on recent threats from Trump: in BBC interview he said that Greenland needed to decide how much it valued independence, and accordingly decide whether it was permissible to sever ties with Denmark and turn to the United States. He didn't say a word about Russia. The BBC article with the MP's comments was published on January 10, the same day a screenshot of his Facebook post began circulating on social media.

IN social networks There is no such post for Hyunga. However, many Telegram channels that distributed the picture claimed that the deputy deleted his post after some time: alone they wrote about two hours, other - about a few hours. The first version is definitely not true: the picture (even if we assume that this is indeed a screenshot of a real post) shows that the post was available for at least seven hours.

But it is unlikely that the scandalous post of a famous Danish politician (Hönge has been sitting in the local parliament for more than 13 years) went unnoticed for so long. Not a single Danish media outlet wrote about it, and the only available image is the same cropped screenshot.

Carsten Hönge himself January 14 wrote on the social network X that the screenshot that has spread on the Internet is a fake. “The chances of me asking Russia for any support are no better than a snowball in hell,” he said in a statement. It is worth noting that in 2022, the deputy has been using the cover photo of his Facebook profile for several months used landscape of the colors of the Ukrainian flag, and subsequently her replaced two photos politics with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

Following this, I considered it necessary speak and Socialist People's Party: “Carsten Hönge never wrote or said the words that are quoted on social networks. The post was fabricated by unknown people who took a photo from Carsten Hönge’s Facebook page and inserted extraneous text there.”

The earliest entry about the alleged appeal of a Danish deputy to Russia, which was found by “Verified”, appeared on January 10 at 18:22 Moscow time in the Telegram channel “Sheikh Tamir"(143,000 views), on January 15, the post was deleted. “Checked” more than once wrote about this channel as the primary source of numerous fakes, most of them dedicated to Ukraine.

Thus, the screenshot of a post by a Danish MP who allegedly asked for help from Russia to protect Greenland is fake. No traces of such a recording could be found, and the distribution of the picture began from a pro-Kremlin Telegram channel, which has already repeatedly published disinformation.

In parallel with this, a Russian trace was found in another story related to Greenland. This is not the first time Trump has spoken about his plans to obtain a strategically important island in the Arctic - he has similar intentions stated at the end of 2019. It is possible that the initiator was Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who touched on this topic in a conversation with the US President in the same year. Cotton, in turn, referred to a letter signed by Greenland's Foreign Minister Ane Lone Bagger. In this letter, she allegedly offered the United States to buy the island. Then the newspaper Politiken reported that it was a fake, and the experts interviewed suggested that Russia could be behind its creation. Now, four years later, Danish intelligence has come to the same conclusion, the results of which published Bild.

Cover photo: social networks