On May 5, Facebook user Koba Avtandil’s son Kuprashvili shared a photo of what appears to be the cover of the weekly magazine The Economist. The same cover was published on a Russian-language platform on January 31, accompanied by the caption, “Moscow will drown in blood in February.” According to the circulated information, the cover allegedly represents the February issue.
The photo of The Economist cover is fabricated. The magazine has not released an issue with such a cover in February or in any other month.
The official website and social media accounts of the weekly magazine The Economist (on X, Facebook, Instagram) do not feature any such cover. Four issues were published in February, but all differ from the one being circulated.
From the archive issues, it is clear that The Economist’s authentic covers have a slightly different style compared to the fake. In addition to a list of topics covered in the issue, typically shown in the top right corner, the cover also displays the issue’s title in the center.
Myth Detector has previously reported on various manipulations involving The Economist.
About the Source:
Facebook user Koba Avtandil’s son Kuprashvili actively shared anti-vaccine content during the COVID-19 pandemic. His posts frequently contain disinformation and manipulative claims, which Myth Detector has fact-checked multiple times. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kuprashvili, like other anti-vaccine Facebook users, has been spreading messages against Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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