At the beginning of September 2025, a frame allegedly from a Ukrainian telethon went viral on the Internet. It is alleged that a cropped photo of Putin with other leaders was shown on air, speculating on the topic of international isolation of the Russian President. We have verified the authenticity of this footage.
Posts accusing Ukrainian television journalists of alleged fraud went viral on September 1. Telegram channels posted two photographs: a screenshot of a certain broadcast showing a cropped photograph of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping with his wife and the presidents of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan with the caption “Joint photo on the sidelines of the SCO summit in China. Isolation at its finest,” and a real general shot of the leaders who arrived at the summit, where about 40 people sat around Putin.
These photographs with comments that TV channels in Ukraine are manipulating public opinion were published by Telegram channels Colonelcassad (234,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), “Evil proof"(196,000), "Uncle Slava" (173,000), "Ukraine.ru"(116,000), "Vobla • news"(108,000), "Typical Odessa"(103,000), "Bloodseeker 2.0"(75,000), etc.
From August 31 to September 2, 2025 in the Chinese city of Tianjin passed summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This year it was especially large-scale - it took part leaders of more than 20 states, including those not members of the SCO, as well as heads of several international organizations, for example, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. International media noted, that for Beijing the summit became an important image event that was supposed to show the unity of the countries of the Global South. Their contrast to the Western world emphasized Putin also said in his speech that the SCO is becoming the pillar of a new world order in which Eurasia plays a key role.
Such a major international forum is always covered by the world media. Many publications about the SCO summit were published in Ukrainian news agencies. At the same time, “Verified” did not find any notes in authoritative Ukrainian media where a cropped photo was used and on its basis a conclusion was drawn about the isolation of Russia on the world stage.
In the lower left corner of the viral screenshot is the logo of the Ukrainian TV channel "Direct". However, the publications do not specify when exactly this frame was shown. Judging by the fact that the original cropped photograph appeared in international media and on official resources On August 31, and the screenshot was distributed on September 1, the broadcast was supposed to take place on one of these two days.
“Verified” was unable to find on the YouTube channel of “Direct” the story that was released at that time about the SCO summit. However, on August 31, the channel broadcast live, hosted by the same presenter as in the viral photo. Moreover, the stream frame on mark 31:24 completely matches the viral image, but instead of a photograph from the summit, it shows Ukrainian analyst Viktor Bobyrenko.
The captions are also different: instead of “Joint photo on the sidelines of the SCO summit in China. Isolation at its finest" - "Law enforcement officers are investigating the circumstances of the murder of Andrei Parubiy." The former speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine was shot in Lviv on August 30 - it was this event that Bobyrenko commented on. During the entire six hours of broadcast, none of its participants spoke about the summit in Tianjin, and the cropped photo also did not appear in the stream. It turns out that the author of the picture that went viral on Telegram took a still frame from a Ukrainian TV channel, after which, using a photo editor, he inserted a cropped photo from the summit and changed the caption.
The earliest post with an edited image found by "Verified" appeared in the Telegram channel “Ukropsky Fresh” on September 1 at 11:32 Moscow time. This channel regularly meets in analyzes “Verified” as the primary source of fakes about Ukraine. Subsequently, the fake not only spread throughout the RuNet, but also hit to the English-language segment of the social network X.
Thus, the cropped photograph from the SCO summit was not shown on the Ukrainian TV channel Pryamiy, and the screenshot used as evidence was faked. In fact, at that moment the presenters were discussing the murder of ex-speaker of the Ukrainian parliament Andrei Parubiy.
Cover photo: kremlin.ru
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