Graffiti in New York City. Volodymyr Zelenskyi. Fox News. russian media. russian fakes

Social media and pro-russian websites are spreading information that graffiti with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi on his knees has allegedly appeared on a building in New York City. "The drawing is accompanied by the inscription "Please vote for Harris. I need more money!" The picture was posted by the American TV channel "Fox News", the russian media outlet "Argumenty i Fakty" reported, among others. In the upper right corner of the image, the "Fox News" logo is used.

The truth: the graffiti with Zelenskyi kneeling is fake. This image was not published on the official "Fox News" website or on social media. A representative of the TV channel told ‘NewsGuard" also denied that the graffiti photo was created by Fox News. Moreover, several image verification tools indicate that it was most likely created by artificial intelligence.
StopFake‘s editorial team analysed the graffiti image being circulated using the image verification tool Forensically. The result of the error analysis in the image does indeed indicate that it is not homogeneous and has most likely been altered. In addition, NewsGuard also examined the image using the TrueMedia tool , which found "substantial evidence" that the photo was created using artificial intelligence. "The campaign is consistent with tactics previously used by Matryoshka, a russian disinformation campaign that publishes fabricated content, including images of graffiti and billboards, to promote anti-Ukrainian messages," the NewsGuard journalist concludes.
Thus, russian media and social media users are spreading disinformation to discredit Ukraine, pointing out that the country's authorities are allegedly benefiting financially from the war. This is an a priori false conclusion, as the loss of life and destruction of infrastructure is far greater than the financial assistance Ukraine receives from its partners. International organisations have estimated that the damage caused to Ukraine by the war has already exceeded $1 trillion. And it is only fair that only one country, as the aggressor, as the initiator of the war, pays this price - and that is russia. Therefore, the international community should focus its efforts on this. This is the position of the Ukrainian authorities.
Based on the materials of Stopfake.org