On March 16, 2023, a Georgian-language user Facebook user shared a screenshot of the article from the Russian language service of “Voice of America”. According to the caption, US Vice President Kamala Harris believes that Russian special services may be behind the “inappropriate behaviour” of President Joe Biden. In October 2022, other Georgian and Russian-language (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) Facebook accounts shared the same screenshot.
The screenshot distributed in the name of “Voice of America,” is fabricated. Similar information cannot be found on the AFP site, which is cited as the source, nor in any other open source. “Myth Detector” contacted the Russian-language bureau of “Voice of America,” which denied publishing such an article.
According to disseminated posts, the “Voice of America” article on Kamala Harris’ statement was published on October 3. In some screenshots, part of the text of the article can be seen, where we read almost the same information as mentioned in the title; according to the text, the US Vice President does not rule out that the special services of foreign countries, including Russia, may be behind the “inappropriate behaviour” of Joe Biden. Below the headline, the screenshot features the inscription “Agence France-Presse” (AFP), creating the impression that this agency is the source of the story.
Some of the posts feature the caption, “Petrov and Boshirov, go on vacation”. Petrov and Boshirov are associates of the “State Intelligence Department of Russia” who were involved in the poisoning of the former employee of the Russian intelligence service, Sergei Skripal, in 2018. These details, along with the fake screenshot’s title, give the impression that it was created for satirical purposes but was then disseminated as authentic information.
“Myth Detector” contacted the Russian-language office of “Voice of America”, where they noted that “Voice of America” had not published a similar article. Apart from “Voice of America”, similar information cannot be found on the AFP website indicated as the source.
“We have no evidence that VOA ever published this piece and that it is highly likely that someone faked it.” – said the representative of “Voice of America”.
This screenshot first appeared on the Internet on October 3-4, 2022, on Russian-language forums. Some of the sites (1,2,3) have published the phrase without a photo.
As for the photo of Kamala Harris used in the screenshot, it depicts the visit of the American vice president to Poland in March 2022. The Russian-language service of “Voice of America” used the photo in an article published on April 26, 2022, which was about Harris being infected with the coronavirus.
Fabricated screenshots attributed to Western editions have also been verified by “Myth Detector” in the past. For more information, see our articles:
- Fabricated Quote by Zelenskyy Disseminated in the Name of the BBC
- Another Fabricated Post about Victoria Nuland in the Name of Radio Liberty
About the Source
Facebook account “Nona Sharabidze” regularly spreads disinformation and Kremlin narratives of anti-Western content. The false information spread by the account was verified by “Myth Detector” a number of times in the past.
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