On April 21, a Russian-speaking user of the Threads social network disseminated information that, according to Bellingcat’s investigation, the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, paid $27 million to Time magazine for inclusion in the list of the 100 most influential people compiled by the publication. This information was also spread by Georgian-speaking Facebook user Eduard Jishkariani, as well as Russian-speaking users of Facebook, websites, and Russian Telegram (1;2;3;4;5;6;7;8;9;10;11;12). The posted texts were accompanied by a video featuring the BBC logo.
The falsified video about Andriy Yermak is circulating on social media. The claim that Yermak paid $27 million to appear on Time magazine’s list is not true. The Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation and media representatives released a statement about the falsified video.
The information that the Head of the office of Ukrainian President, Andriy Yermak, paid $25 million to be included in Time magazine’s prestigious list of the 100 most influential people does not correspond to reality. The video, circulated under the name of the BBC, is falsified. In reality, the BBC has not published anything like this; the video cannot be found on the BBC’s official webpages (1; 2). Moreover, Assistant Editor at BBC Verify, Olga Robinson, commented on the fake video. According to her comment published on the X website (former Twitter), the said video is one of a number of anti-Ukraine fakes spread on social media recently.
Bellingcat also posted a comment on its official X-page. The statement reads that the falsified video is part of an ongoing campaign: fakes are first posted on Telegram and then spread on other platforms, including X.
A statement about the fake video was also released by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation.
Time magazine published the list of the most influential people of 2024 around the world. The list is divided into categories, and one of them, the “Leaders” category, includes Andriy Yermak and Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. False information about Navalnaya has also been disseminated in the last few days. Read more about it in Myth Detector’s article:
Video fabrications falsely attributed to Western media outlets appear on social networks every now and then. They follow a common pattern: the authors use the logos of reputable media outlets to spread disinformation and make their videos look like the reports of these media outlets. In addition, the primary sources of fake information are sometimes impossible to identify. The videos are distributed mainly by Russian media and Telegram channels. The videos use generic footage cut from different videos, and they are often overlaid with music and captions, but the voice of the journalist reading the captions cannot be heard.
Read more about who fabricates the videos, disseminated under the name of respected media outlets, and how in the Myth Detector’s article:
About sources
Facebook user Eduard Jishkariani often disseminates anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian disinformation and manipulative news. In the past, Myth Detector has repeatedly checked for false information spread by this user.
Russian-speaking Facebook user Irisha Irusia has also previously disseminated fake news. Her post was flagged by Myth Detector as false.
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