“Zelensky posts drug video himself – drug addict in charge?” This is the title chosen by the Austrian site Report24 to spread rumors about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s supposed drug use. Known for relaying fake news, this site is an offshoot of weekly viewanother German-speaking platform practicing disinformation, as exposed here by the German investigative media Correctiv.
From a simple video posted to the Ukrainian leader’s Instagram account, various social media accounts and disinformation sites have interpreted white lines briefly seen on his desk as cocaine rails.
The website Report24 goes so far as to extrapolate on “the expression on his face, absent, confused, not to say hallucinated”. However, explain The standard, the video “does not pass the test of factual verification” : there is indeed “no sign that President Zelensky is under the influence of narcotics in his videos” et “the hypothetical lines of cocaine on the table are clearly identifiable as ornaments, also recognizable in other photos and videos”.
Rigged videos
The Ukrainian president is regularly accused of having an addiction to drugs or alcohol, recalls the Austrian newspaper, so much so that “Zelensky self-tested during the 2019 presidential campaign to answer charges already made at the time. The results were negative.”
More recently, pro-Russian accounts relayed a faked video on social networks to make white powder appear on other images showing the head of state in a videoconference on his computer, adds the Standard in another article. The two versions – before and after faking – were published on Twitter by Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative media Bellingcat :
The original video, without white powder, is also available here on YouTube. Among the elements allowing to identify the modifications made to the original images, the Standard relief “lower frame rate per second (FPS)” and the quality “significantly less good” of the faked version.