On 16 May, a Twitter user posted a video that shows a Ukrainian TV reporter allegedly sniffing white powder. The description leaves no room for doubt. The author directly states that the journalist was using drugs, and refers to the popular anti-Ukrainian narrative about the alleged drug addiction of President Zelenskyy. In fact, the clip is a skilfully crafted montage.
A news reporter taking drugs is a montage
The video of a man snorting white powder has been viewed more than 360,000 times. What immediately raises suspicion about the authenticity of this scene is the absence of the original sound, which was replaced with a song by a Russian band called Three Days of Rain. The author tried so hard that they left the microphone in the frame, which is why it is stationary. Another possibility is that the recording of the screen with manipulated video was supposed to make it difficult to find the original. However, it was pretty straightforward. To find the source of the original footage, we used the reverse image search technique.
The real recording
As it turns out, in the real video the journalist of the Ukrainian channel 1+1 spoke with Dmytro Kuleba. The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry was in Germany, where he participated in the Munich Security Conference. Interestingly, the real video, which was published online on 17 February, also went viral because of a funny flop. Due to technical problems, Kuleba did not hear the question about the situation on the Polish-Ukrainian border. He didn’t know he was already on air, so he lit a cigarette and inhaled.
This scene became extremely popular due to numerous memes posted on Ukrainian social media.
Quite possibly, the Russian remake with a man taking drugs was also created as a form of joke. Then, various accounts spreading anti-Ukrainian content treated this video as authentic.
Not a cigarette, but a joint
Shortly after the publication of the video with Kuleba, different misinformation was shared on Telegram, referring to the alleged use of drugs by Ukrainian politicians. The author of the post suggested that the Minister of Foreign Affairs did not smoke a cigarette, but the so-called joint, insinuating that it was marijuana. By doing this, Kuleba was supposed to demonstrate his support for the bill legalising the use of marijuana for medical purposes, signed by Zelenskyy on 13 February, which was obviously not true. This was explained by the Vox Ukraine portal.
Summary
A popular clip of a journalist sniffing white powder on air turned out to be a video edit. In fact, the original video featured the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Dmytro Kuleba. The topic of drug use is very popular in the Kremlin’s anti-Ukrainian propaganda, which we already wrote about in one of our articles.
Sources:
informator.ua: Казус із міністром: Дмитро Кулеба затягнувся цигаркою у прямому ефірі – мережі одразу наповнили меми
Vox Ukraine: БЕЗОСНОВАТЕЛЬНО: Министр иностранных дел Украины употребил наркотики во время прямого эфира
