On February 20, Russian propaganda media outlets MK.RU, and TSARGRAD.TV reported that after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s harsh criticism of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian soldiers took action and burned a mannequin depicting Trump, along with his books. A video in which Trump is labeled a traitor and his mannequin is set on fire was aired on Sezoni TV during the program “Daily Summary with Nikoloz Mzhavanadze” and also shared on the Georgian-language Facebook page Third World War. Additionally, another video allegedly showing Trump’s books being burned was posted on a Georgian-language Facebook account. This video featured the logo of the Ukrainian Telegram news channel Труха.These videos were also circulated in Russian and Belarusian media in 2024.
Both videos, which claim to show Ukrainian soldiers burning a mannequin of Donald Trump and his books, are old and most likely staged. In the footage where the mannequin is burned, the Труха Telegram channel logo has been digitally inserted, and the channel itself never published this video. In the second video, the person dressed in a Ukrainian military uniform is wearing an old Azov Battalion insignia that is no longer in use. Moreover, the person speaks Ukrainian incorrectly and with an accent, indicating that they are likely not Ukrainian.
The circulated video showing a mannequin with Donald Trump’s image being burned was fact-checked by France 24’s fact-checking service. The video is most likely staged. A yellow logo is visible in the footage, which belongs to the Ukrainian Telegram news channel Труха. Journalists from the Swedish TV channel SVT Nyheter contacted moderators of the Tpyxa, who stated that such footage was never published on their channel and that the logo was used without their permission.
The second video, which allegedly shows Ukrainian soldiers burning Trump’s books, has been circulating in Russian sources since 2024. The Ukrainian fact-checking organization Detector.media investigated the video. According to their findings, the video is staged, and several details confirm this:
- The person speaking in the video does not speak Ukrainian fluently, and an accent is noticeable. It is highly likely that he is not Ukrainian.
- The man shown in the video is wearing an old Azov Battalion badge on his Ukrainian military uniform, featuring a logo that has not been in use for a long time.
The official AZOV page currently features the following logo.
3.The video is only circulated by propaganda sources.
This video was also fact-checked by France 24’s fact-checkers. The article states that Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, wrote on X that the video is most likely fake and was staged by the Kremlin-affiliated group Storm-1516, which produces various fake visual materials in support of Russian interests.
Although these videos were also circulated last year, there is now an attempt to link them to Donald Trump’s recent statements about Zelenskyy. On February 19, Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator who governs without elections and stated that he should not have allowed the war in Ukraine to happen.
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