Russian propaganda spreads photo and video fakes about Romanian fans at match with Ukraine

Clipped audio track of well-known Ukrainian protest song about Putin was used in the fake video

Russian and foreign media outlets and bots on the social media platforms X, TikTok and YouTube are spreading alleged photos of fans of the Romanian national team who hung the flag of the so-called "DNR" on the stands during a Euro 2024 match with Ukraine. After that, Russian bots on X began to distribute a video in which Romanian fans allegedly shouted the name of the Kremlin dictator during this match.

The photo and video are fabricated.

The photo with the flag of the so-called "DNR" was faked with the help of a graphic editor. In fact, during the live broadcast of the football match, there was no flag of a terrorist organization in the stands.

The fans of the Romanian national team also did not shout the name of the Russian dictator. To create a fake video, the propagandists clipped the audio track of a well-known Ukrainian protest song about Putin and superimposed it on a video with Romanian fans.

Fact-checkers from the Romanian branch of the news outlet Newsweek found a video with Romanian fans chanting a well-known Ukrainian slogan. It was the audio track from this video that Russian propagandists used to create their fake.

The Euro 2024 match between Ukraine and Romania took place on June 17, 2024 in Munich at the Allianz Arena stadium. It ended with a 3-0 victory for the Romanians.

This is not the first time that the Russians have used a large sports forum to spread anti-Ukrainian propaganda. For example, during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Russian propagandists faked a video clip from the Al Jazeera channel.

Andriy Olenin