An image showing Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Joe Biden accompanied by some men is doing the rounds on social media. Many users have shared the picture claiming that the man behind Zelensky is his body double and the Polish press accidentally recorded him during Biden’s visit to Kyiv.
A Facebook user posted the viral post with a caption: Polish media accidently recorded #Zelensky‘s double when they covered #Biden‘s visit to #Kyiv
You can check the post here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the viral post, and found it to be misleading.
Running a Google Keyword Search around Biden’s visit to Kyiv, Our search led us to a YouTube video titled: Biden is in Kyiv: the first footage of the meeting with Zelensky, published on February 20, 2023, on the official channel of UATV English — a Ukrainian state-run media house.
Here we can see a clear video of Biden’s visit. One of the keyframes starting at 00:46 shows the viral picture indicating that the image has been taken from a similar frame. We can see that the person, who is allegedly being claimed to be Zelensky’s body-double, follow the two presidents and then stop at the entrance with other guards stationed all around the area.
Conducting a Reverse Image Search of the video keyframes, we found that the video, too, is viral with the same claims. But under one such video on Twitter, we found a reply by a BBC World journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh.
Checking Shayan’s bio, we got to know that he is a Journalist reporting on disinformation, conspiracy theories, cults and extremism for BBC World. He claims that the person accompanying Zelensky is his personal bodyguard Maksym Donets and not his body double.
Another article in a Finnish tabloid Ilta Sanomat, published on November 19, 2022, shows glimpses of how he accompanies Zelensky wherever he goes.
This proves that the man in the viral picture is, indeed, Zelensky’s personal bodyguard.
Therefore, we can conclusively say that the viral picture’s claim is misleading.
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