Vishvas News in its investigation found that this claim is misleading. This video is edited. Putin was not present during the performance in the original video.
Vishvas News (New Delhi): A post is going viral on social media in the midst of the Ukraine-Russia war, in which a person can be seen doing comedy on the stage. The post is claiming that “The man in the video is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who made fun of Russian President Putin during a comedy show long ago. After this, everyone in the audience applauded, whereas Putin did not clap and he is taking his revenge now.” Vishvas News in its investigation found that this claim is misleading. This video is edited. Putin was not present during the performance in the original video.
Facebook user Akioyamen Josephine (archive) posted this picture on her Facebook profile along with the caption, “Circa 20 years ago today. Zelensky made a joke about Putin while he was in the audience on a Russia’s comedy show. Putin didn’t applaud. Today. Implacable foes.”
Vishvas News searched the screen grabs of this video with the help of Google reverse image. We found this video of Zelensky performing on a verified YouTube channel called KVN. The video was shared in March 2012 with the title “KVN Major League 2002”. KVN Major League is a popular comedy talent show in Russia. However, we could not find a clip of Putin sitting in the audience anywhere in the entire video.
According to the news of Geohistory, Zelensky took part in several major leagues of KVN. However, no evidence was found to confirm that the person in the video was Zelensky. But comparing the old photographs of Zelensky with the viral video, there is a lot of similarities between the two. You can see these similarities in the collage below.
We then searched for screenshots from part of the clip featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin. We found this clip in another video uploaded by KVN in 2013. The video was titled, “KVN Premier League Team – Special Project 2006.” In this video, this clip can be seen at an interval of 1 minute 9 seconds.
Now it is clear that both the clips are from different times, which have been combined to make it look like that both the clips are from the same show.
Vishvas News has contacted Ukraine’s fact-checking team via email to confirm the matter. The news will be updated as soon as a response is received from there.
Vishvas News checked the social background of the user who shared the viral screenshot. Akioyamen Josephine has 8,272 followers.
Conclusion: Vishvas News in its investigation found that this claim is misleading. This video is edited. Putin was not present during the performance in the original video.
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