Russian fake: Madonna and Putin's address

Propagandists forged the superstar's video and linked it to Putin's address

The other day, Russian Telegram channels shared a video that seems to be an excerpt from a new music video by American singer Madonna. In it, she allegedly knocks a pawn painted in the colors of the Ukrainian flag off the chessboard to her own song Back That Up To The Beat. In a post accompanying the video, propagandists linked the video to Putin's February 21 address. In addition, they claimed that Madonna allegedly makes anti-Ukrainian content not for the first time and that they could hear the words "Do you want to apologize? Absolutely no one apologizes" in the song that sounds in the video.

There is no such Back That Up To The Beat video on Madonna’s official YouTube channel or Instagram account. Moreover, despite there is Official Lyric Video of this song on YouTube, it has nothing to do with the video shared by the Russians.

The Official Lyric Video was posted on January 7, accompanied by a text. On it, Madonna is not dressed in a leather suit as in the propagandists' video.

It turned out that to create this fake, Russian propaganda used excerpts from the singer's video on her TikTok account posted on December 18, 2022. The song in this video is the same as in the propagandists' video and it does not contain the words "Do you want to apologize? Absolutely no one apologizes." In Madonna's TikTok video, there is no chessboard with a pawn in the colors of the Ukrainian national flag.

At the same time, Google offers several links to pages where such a chessboard and a pawn were published.

Both links lead to Shutok entertainment site with a Russian domain. In its selection of 25 pictures, there is a screenshot of a post on Sheikh Tamir Telegram channel which also shared the fake video starring Madonna. It happened on February 17 and there is no mention of Putin's address.

This is not the first time that Russian propaganda tried to play on Madonna's name and spread a fake. Last December, the Russians ramped up a video in which the American singer allegedly chews and spits out the Ukrainian flag. VoxCheck team debunked it.

Madonna spoke in support of Ukraine at the very beginning of the full-scale invasion.

Dmytro Badrak