Advertising campaign calling for “stand with Ukraine,” which was allegedly initiated by the Ukrainian government, is fake. The corporation that installed the billboard shown in the video denied the existence of such an advertisement.
Russian propaganda media and telegram channels published a video showing a billboard with the text “Helping Jews = burning money. Stand with Ukraine!” and an animation of burning banknotes. The billboard is allegedly located in New York. Some channels even claim that the advertisement was ordered and paid for by the Ukrainian government. At the time of publication, one of the posts had more than 350,000 views and 500 comments accusing Ukrainians of anti-Semitism.
Now that the world’s attention is focused on Hamas’ attack on Israel, Russian propaganda is convinced that a war in Israel would mean a loss of international interest in Ukraine and a reduction in funding from Western partners. Thus, with such desperate statements, Ukraine is allegedly trying to draw attention to its own needs.
In fact, at first glance, the ad calling for non-support of Israel looks like it was inserted into the original video by some media editor. Firstly, the sharpness of the banner with the message about Ukraine is significantly higher than the previous advertisement that was broadcasted on the screen. Secondly, while the author of the video is walking past the billboard, the animation remains static, the image has no distortions unlike the original advertisement that was broadcasted.
However, to be sure, StopFake asked JCDecaux, the media company that installs outdoor advertising, to comment on the video, which was allegedly shown on the billboard. The corporation’s communications director, Clementine Prat, replied that the video distributed by telegram channels was fake, and the company had never broadcast such a message on its billboards.
Third, the Center for Countering Disinformation found the source of the original video. It was filmed a month ago by The NYC Walking Show YouTube channel. On the channel, the author conducts virtual tours of the streets of New York.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has become a source of fakes about Ukraine for Russian propagandists. For example, StopFake recently denied that three Ukrainians were detained in Israel for looting, and that Ukraine refuses to evacuate its citizens from Israel.
