Propagandists are attempting to discredit President Volodymyr Zelensky before an international audience
Disinformation is spreading on social media about alleged new front pages of several international media outlets featuring quotes from an interview given by Zelensky’s former press secretary Yuliia Mendel to American pro-Russian blogger Tucker Carlson.
In particular, Russian bloggers on Telegram, as well as accounts on X and Facebook, have circulated screenshots of supposed front pages from Germany’s Bild, Britain’s Liverpool Echo, Portugal’s Público, France’s Ouest-France, and Israel’s The Jerusalem Post. These fake covers contain headlines with unflattering quotes allegedly attributed to Mendel about Volodymyr Zelensky, including claims about his supposed “drug addiction.” This is one of the recurring fake narratives used by Russian propaganda as part of its disinformation campaign against the Ukrainian President.
This is false. None of the listed publications released covers mentioning Mendel’s interview or containing her quotes about Zelensky.
On the authentic front page of the May 12 edition of Bild, instead of the fake headline about the Ukrainian President, there was actually a teaser for an article citing German Finance Ministry data on average household income. This indicates that propagandists likely used graphic editing software to forge the newspaper’s cover.
