On April 14-17, 2023, the Russian-language Telegram channel ТелеДНО, the Russian platform dzen.ru, as well as the Russian- and Georgian-language Facebook accounts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) published the alleged image of the cover of the 337th issue of the British newspaper “The New European. The cover depicts the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sitting on the Dalai Lama’s lap and offering a kiss in exchange for payment. To their left is the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, while the caricature is accompanied by the following caption – “How much is Britain willing to pay to resolve the Ukrainian crisis?”
The cover of “The New European” is fabricated. The cover photo of issue #337, published by the British magazine, does not match the one disseminated by the Russian and Georgian-language sources. The Twitter page of “The New European” also commented on the fabricated caricature, calling it the “lie of the week” category winner.
The cover of issue #337, published by “The New European,” has an entirely different design. This is confirmed by the newspaper’s Facebook and Twitter posts (1, 2), as well as the official website of “The New European.”
A similar caricature can be found neither in the old issues nor among special issues of the publication. Notably, the upper right corner of the fake cover indicates that it is, in fact, a “special issue.”
In addition, the official Twitter account of “The New European published a post, stressing that the widespread caricature, where Zelenskyy is sitting on the Dalai Lama’s lap, is fabricated. The publication writes that “Vladimir Putin and a very mediocre cartoonist from the Russian Federation became the winners of the lie of the week category.” The tweet was accompanied by a photo of the fabricated cover.
Fabricating the covers of famous publications is one of the most commonly used methods of Kremlin propaganda. One of the last covers verified by the “Myth Detector” featured Volodymyr Zelensky with Vladimir Putin and Jesus Christ on the French satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo:”
- Another Fabricated Caricature of Zelenskyy in the Name of Charlie Hebdo
- How does Kremlin Propaganda Fabricate the Covers of Western Outlets to Discredit Ukraine?
Tako Inasaridze
Myth Detector Lab
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