On January 8, a Georgian-language Facebook user published a photo of a map, which, according to the description, was sent from one of the bars in the so-called green zone in Baghdad, where the map is used as a table cover. On the map, we see that the location and names of the countries have been changed, and the territory of Georgia is united with Ukraine. The user writes: “It turns out that our Ukrainian “friends” not only planned to conquer Russia, but also consider Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as part of their territory.”
The Facebook user disseminates a photomanipulation. In fact, the map claimed to depict the Ukrainians’ “goals” actually belongs to the board game Risk. The countries on the game map are not located as they are on the real-world political map.
In fact, the photo shared by the Facebook user shows a map of the board game Risk and has nothing to do with Ukraine’s attitude towards the territories of other countries or its “plans” of conquest.
The game Risk was created in the 1950s by the famous French film director, Albert Lamorisse. The original name of the game was La Conqueste du Monde, which translates from French as Conquest of the World. Lamorisse pitched the board game to Miro, a French game company, which modified the rules slightly to make the game easier for novice players. In the US, the game was introduced by Parker Brothers and the rules were changed once again, for example, cards were added to make the process much faster. The company renamed La Conqueste du Monde to Risk: the Continental Game.
The board game maps may be different depending on the edition or version of the game. For example, there are editions themed after the TV series Game of Thrones and Star Wars.
In the classic version of the game, the world map is divided into 42 areas. The names and layouts of the territories do not match the world political map, and although the author of the post focuses only on Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia, it is also worth noting that the territories on other continents do not match the borders or names of the countries.
According to the rules of Risk, during the game, the participants use an army of pieces and try to capture other players’ territories by rolling the dice, and as a result, control as much of the map as possible.
About the Source
Georgian-language Facebook user Eduard Jishkariani often publishes anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian content, including disinformation. “Myth Detector” has debunked the false information disseminated by Jishkariani a number of times in the past.
The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.
