In June 2025, Russian-language Telegram channels reported that the authors of a manual for Portuguese schoolchildren included Crimea into Russia. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.
The viral photo appears to show a page from a Portuguese geography textbook. One of the illustrations on it is signed as “Crimean Plateau, Russia.” “Zrada after zrada is spreading across Europe. <…> Respect to the Portuguese,” they commented on the photo on the Telegram channel “Front bird"(24,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). The photo also appeared in the Ostashko! Important" (twice, 103,000 And 99,000 views), "Incident Crimea road accident emergency"(33,000), "News Crimea" (27,000), "Pavel Onishchenko news"(12,000), etc. Notes on this topic were published by some news resources.
All messages are illustrated with the same photograph - this often happens when falsified information is disseminated. Moreover, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels have already reported that the authors of European geography textbooks allegedly began to recognize the Russian annexation of Crimea and other regions of Ukraine. In October 2022, they distributed a similar map from what was claimed to be a Spanish textbook. However, how it turned out, the photo was doctored and first appeared on an anonymous Telegram channel, and the original, which depicts Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, was taken not from a Spanish manual, but from a Mexican one.
Using a reverse image search, “Verified” found the original source of the photo, which was distributed in June through Telegram channels. May 29, 2025 posted on its Facebook page chapter Associations of Ukrainians in Portugal Pavlo Sadokha. He also published the cover of the manual (this geography textbook for 7th grade students) and another page from it: it shows a map of Europe in the 9th–12th centuries, and the territory on which part of modern Ukraine is located is signed as “Russian Principality”.
The text itself was an appeal to Main Inspectorate of Education and Science Portugal. Sadokha asked to check from which sources the authors of the textbook took information and to make the necessary corrections to the manual. He noted that his attention to this problem was brought to his attention by a Ukrainian refugee, a 7th grade student at a Portuguese school, who was forced to leave his country and is experiencing severe psychological stress due to Russian aggression.
On June 6, Sadoha published another post in which reportedthat, following his appeal, the Main Inspectorate of Education and Science began an inspection of this textbook. Soon the head of the World Coordination Educational Council of the World Congress of Ukrainians Lyubov Lyubchik statedthat the organization begins the process of studying, analyzing and verifying information relating to Ukraine in history and geography textbooks of different countries.
Thus, one of the Portuguese geography textbooks actually says that Crimea is located on Russian territory. This was first reported by Ukrainian activists, and the Portuguese authorities began an investigation into their appeal.
Cover photo: Telegram screenshot
Read on topic:
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- Is it true that Ukraine published a textbook on the country’s history with caricatures of Zelensky on the cover?
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