In February 2025, a video circulated on the RuNet in which the French President allegedly showed an upside-down map of Ukraine during a live broadcast on social networks. We have verified the accuracy of such messages.
February 21, 2025, official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova published in his Telegram channel there is a video in which French President Emmanuel Macron shows viewers a map of Ukraine. “Apparently, by showing an inverted map of Ukraine, Macron wanted to explain that their plan to “inflict a strategic defeat on Russia” was implemented upside down and everything was turned upside down. And for a sick person,” commented the speaker of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the video (109,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). They talked about Zakharova’s post TASS, "Gazeta.ru", "Moskovsky Komsomolets"and other Russian media. Some of them further criticized Macron. For example, in the Telegram channel “Tsargrad-TV” it was emphasized: “And no one whispered into the French president’s earphone that the map was upside down. Most likely, because no one from Macron’s circle simply has any idea what the map of Ukraine looks like.” Publications on the same topic appeared in other channels, including Gura Anton (95,000 views) and "Special Operation Z" (65,000), as well as in "VKontakte", Instagram, X And Facebook.
February 20 Macron spent on his social networks, an hour-long live broadcast, during which he answered questions from viewers about the war in Ukraine and threats to the security of Europe. At the beginning of the stream, the politician briefly described the history of the conflict, in particular, showed a map of Ukraine with marked regions that Russia annexed and/or occupied in 2014 and 2022. Fragments of the broadcast were shown on French television - for example, Zakharova published an excerpt from the channel’s broadcast BFMTV, it was he who became viral in the Russian segment of the Internet.
Macron's original stream took place in Facebook and on YouTube. On the timestamp 02:37 The French president took a map of Ukraine from the table and showed it to the audience. The map, contrary to Zakharova’s words, is not upside down, but mirrored. The same problem occurs with other maps and documents that Macron showed during the stream. In other words, all the printouts were correct, but the operators broadcast the video in a mirror image. In the same form, its fragments were broadcast on BFMTV. Subsequently on YouTube channel Macron was already uploaded the correct, unmirrored video.
Thus, in Macron’s stream, the map of the occupied territories of Ukraine did look mirrored, but this was due to a broadcast error, and not due to problems with the printing itself or an oversight by the French president.
Cover photo: social networks
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