On January 21, 2025, a video spread across Russian-language social networks, allegedly cut from a live broadcast of the “1 + 1” channel, in which an off-screen commentator speaks approvingly of the Mask: “Our man!” We figured out whether this actually happened.
The eight-second video captured the finale of Elon Musk's speech at the inauguration celebrations. He says “thank you,” presses his right hand to his heart, and then sharply throws it up and adds: “My heart goes out to you.” A Ukrainian commentator behind the scenes at this time argues that for Musk this moment was the very day that he had been waiting for a long time, but he interrupts himself mid-sentence and says with a surprised and approving intonation: “Oh! Musk just zinged! Well, our man, it turns out.”
This video was published by many Russian-language Telegram channels, in particular “KB"(253,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Uncle Slava"(198,000), "Belarusian security officer"(167,000), Zergulio (130,000), "Ukraine.ru"(125,000), Rus_Criminal (123,000), "Reports and analytics of SVO (reserve)"(106,000), "Petya the First"(101,000). In addition, the video appeared and “VKontakte"
American billionaire and richest man in the world Elon Musk - one of the most active and influential supporters and sponsors Donald Trump. On January 20, 2025, he attended the presidential inauguration ceremony, after which he went to a celebration at the Capital One Arena sports and entertainment complex. There Musk spoke with speech, at the end of which he made a gesture that caused wide discussion all over the world.
In the upper left corner of the viral video we see the logo of the TV channel “1 + 1” with the mark “marathon”, and in the upper right corner we see the phrase “United News” (“United News” - Ukrainian). “United News” is a nationwide information telethon that has been running since February 24, 2022. Content for it is produced by three private media holdings (1 + 1 Media, Starlight Media and Inter Media Group), as well as the Verkhovna Rada TV channel, owned by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The marathon is partially or fully broadcast by many Ukrainian TV channels.
According to the time stamp on the ticker at the bottom of the screen, the video captured the broadcast moment at 21:55. This coincides with the timing of Musk's speech in Washington - his speech ended at approximately 14:55 North American Eastern Time, which is exactly 21:55 Kyiv time.
Live broadcast of the “United News” marathon is available online, and recordings of the broadcast are posted in segments of several hours on the YouTube channel TSN (information program of the channel “1 + 1”). According to the recording for the evening of January 20, 2025, there was no live broadcast of the inaugural celebrations as part of “One New Thing.” At 21:55 there was indeed a discussion of Trump taking office, but not in a broadcast format - about what was happening in Washington during direct connection said a correspondent of the Ukrainian service of the Voice of America radio station Katerina Lisunova. Its inclusion continued until the news broadcast began at 22:00. The journalist did not mention Elon Musk. His speech was not included in the large report on the inauguration, which walked from 22:35 to 22:41 Kyiv time.
The very first video allegedly with a live broadcast was published by the Telegram channel Avia.pro. This happened on January 21 at 15:34 Moscow time (the post received 18,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). Previously Avia.pro was repeatedly noticed in spreading fakes about Ukraine and more.
Thus, the 1 + 1 channel did not broadcast live the inauguration of Donald Trump. At 21:55 (this is the time indicated in the viral video) on the day of the inauguration, Katerina Lisunova, a correspondent for the Ukrainian service of the Voice of America radio station, was on air, but did not mention Elon Musk. The video with the fake recording of the live broadcast first appeared on the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel, which had previously published false information.
Cover photo: still from viral video. Source: Telegram screenshot
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