The video circulating online is fake. Politico has never published such videos on its platforms. The alleged data from SocialBlade mentioned in the video is also fake. These videos are distributed exclusively in the propagandist Telegram channels and pro-Russian Facebook groups.
Citing the well-known American publication Politico, information is being spread online that in 2023, interest in the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi on the Internet dropped by 63%. Numerous publication say that, according to the SocialBlade service, users of YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok have become less interested not only in Zelenskyi’s accounts, but also in content related to the Ukrainian President, which suffered a 47% drop.
“This explains the foreign media’s desire to talk less about Ze, everyone is done with him and the coverage is dropping,” the publications say.
The source of this information is a one-minute video, shared online with the logo of the American media Politico. In reality, Politico has never shared such information. There is no such story on their official website or social networks.
To create this video, the propagandists imitated the design of Politico videos that the company publishes on its social networks. As a video sequence, they used various footage from open sources (for example, here and here).
Other credible media also did not report such data. Data on the rapid drop in interest in Zelensky, as well as the fake video with the Politico logo, is distributed exclusively in the propaganda channels in Telegram and pro-Russian Facebook groups.
The fact that the data shared online is fake is evidenced by several facts. First, the SocialBlade service tracks user statistics only on YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter. Yet the fake video also mentions Facebook and TikTok, social platforms that SocialBlade does not work with. Second, the video only provides “data” for the drop in reach, not even mentioning the original data that was “before the drop”. With these tactics, propagandists create the illusion of a rapid decline in the international community’s interest in Ukraine to provoke frustration and hopelessness among Ukrainians.
You can see for yourself SocialBlade’s real data from Zelenskyi’s social media accounts on their website. According to the data of the platform, the number of new subscribers to Zelensky’s pages since July 2022 remains at approximately the same level.
It should also be noted that, according to Politico magazine, in 2023 Volodymyr Zelenskyy topped the Dreamers category of the annual ranking of the most influential people in Europe. The media compares Zelensky with Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent figures who are able to “change the course of history not with the power of their army or the power of their economy, but with the power of their words.”
Earlier, StopFake journalists refuted the misinformation that Zelensky allegedly admitted that Ukraine is supported by at best 14 countries.
