Is it true that the American TV presenter called Zelensky a small spinach when data on the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was shown on the air?

In January 2025, the video spread on social networks: the leading weather forecast on the ABC channel instead of the map notices the screenshot of the article about the loss of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the war and tries to joke. We checked the reliability of this video.

In a 11-second video, the host says that a cooling is expected and that this is normal after the storm. At this moment, instead of a map with a metead, an article by BBC appears under the heading “more than a million Ukrainian soldiers died in two years, the Pentagon claims”, illustrated by a portrait of the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky. “This is not a storm, this is a small spinach,” the host reacted, pointing to the screen. In Telegram channels, this video was often accompanied by a comment: “The screen itself is more interesting. On it, the Pentagon indicates Ukrainian losses. Maybe this photo was taken out and not by chance? ” The video was distributed by such channels as "Russia now • News"(208,000 views at the time of writing this analysis),"Kostyan Cat - Official Channel"(78 000) and Tariknezalejko️️ (40,000), as well as Users Facebook.

The screenshot of the news displayed on the screen looks like the real publications of the BBC, but “verified” could not find such a note on the website of the British media corporation either by the heading or by the name of the alleged author Robert Grinollah.

In addition, BBC journalists (in all likelihood, in accordance with the internal standards of the editorial office) write the number of 1,000,000 words, not numbers. 

The choice of BBC to create a fake screenshot is not accidental - the British broadcasting corporation enjoys authority around the world, so that the content with its logo causes confidence even among unprepared readers. That is why, as before It wrote “Checked”, the creators of fakes are especially often stylizing their products to BBC videos or news.

With the help of a reverse search for images from Google, “verified” found the original video, which became the basis for the viral video. It turned out that it has nothing to do with the ABC channel and was published a year ago. This is a fragment of weather forecasts on the American regional channel News12 New Jersey. On January 19, 2024, during the morning broadcast, the editors mistakenly brought a photo of the packaging of young spinach (Baby Spinach-it was this phrase Telegram channels that were mistakenly translated as “little spinach”), which was supposed to illustrate Another news. Leading weather forecast Mike Rizzo Laid Video of a funny incident on your Instagram page.

Edited video was the first to publish the Telegram channel "Bear"January 17, 2025 at 13:20 Moscow time. This channel is already repeatedly was Noticed In the spread of fake information regarding war in Ukraine.

Thus, the creators of the hungering video took a real video and edited it, adding a screenshot of a non -existent article about the losses of the Ukrainian army. The original video has nothing to do with the war in Ukraine - the host of the weather forecast really saw a photograph of spinach packaging on the screen there.

Photo on the cover: frame from a viral video. Source: Telegram screenshot

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Is the video true in which the host of the BBC news talks about the unwillingness to discuss Ukraine?
2. Is the video true in which the BBC hosts have fun against the background of the photo from the grave of Navalny?
3. Is the BBC correspondent that “imitates lying in the trench” is true?