In April 2023, the cover of a foreign satirical publication with a caricature on the theme of the church, which depicts the president of Ukraine, the Pope and priests at the stake, was distributed online. This is the cover of the Turkish satirical magazine LeMan. It began to spread online on April 7. The cartoon shows the Pope, who, with the words "It's good," watches Zelenskyy burn Orthodox priests. The caption above the drawing reads: “Militant Catholics. Who is next"? Some authors who posted the cover believe that this is a hint from the publication that, in offering Easter reconciliation, Pope Francis "said nothing about the persecution of Orthodox priests by the Nazis."
This cover appeared in Telegram channels, VKontakte and Twitter.
On April 7, the chairman of the World Union of Old Believers Leonid Sevastyanov, citing a personal conversation with the pontiff, told TASS that Pope Francis proposed establishing a two-week truce in the war zone between Ukraine and Russia - it was supposed to begin on April 9 during the celebration of Easter and Bright Easter weeks by Catholics and Orthodox. A note about this appeared on the website of the news agency at 10:44. The fake cover started circulating about two hours later. Subsequently, official confirmation of such an initiative by the Pope from the Vatican was not found.
Faktyoxla Lab. has tried to clarify who and for what purpose publishes fake covers of the Turkish magazine LeMan.
Let's start with the fact that LeMan is a weekly magazine, the latest issues of which go on sale on Wednesdays. However, the circulating cover states that it is No.1620 (12th issue 2023) for April 6 (Thursday). When checking the social network of the Turkish publication (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), as well as the official website, it was not possible to find a similar drawing with Francis and Zelenskyy. On the contrary, issue No.1620 of April 5 (Wednesday) was found to have a different cover that depicts Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In addition, on the fake cover, the font is different from what the publication uses. This can be seen from most of the letters and numbers on the barcode and in the inscriptions above the magazine's logo.
As it turned out, the first fake cover appeared in the Sheikh Tamir Telegram channel on April 7 at 12:24. This channel has repeatedly shared fake news about what is happening in Ukraine and at least three times became the primary source of disinformation on this topic.
It is noteworthy that at the end of 2022, after the words of the Pope about the Buryats and Chechens, a fake cover of LeMan magazine also appeared on the Web.
So, allegedly, the Turkish caricature associated with the Pope began to disperse on December 1. In the drawing, the pontiff points his finger at a man in a Chechen national costume and says: “Chechens! Real slaughterers! Not like us!” At the same time, on the same side with Francis are a Nazi, a crusader knight, as well as a priest with a child (apparently, this is another hint at scandals around child molestation). Behind the pope, a seemingly burnt body can be seen, which probably refers to the burning of heretics or women accused of witchcraft.
Posts with this cover can be found in Telegram channels, for example, Solovyov, Gasparyan and others. The cover appeared in small communities on VKontakte and on the personal pages of users.
On the supposedly Turkish cover with a Chechen and a dad, it is indicated that this is No.1604, released on December 1, 2022 (supposedly the 47th issue since the beginning of the year). We wrote above that the latest issues of this magazine go on sale on Wednesdays, and December 1 is Thursday.
Fake cover of the 47th issue of 2022
Again, when checking the main social networks of the Turkish magazine (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) we didn’t find a viral cover in them. At the moment, the last magazine posted there is listed under No.1603, and went on sale on November 30, it has two covers (first and second) and it is also marked as the 47th issue since the beginning of the year. It turns out that the 1604th issue of the weekly magazine allegedly came out just a day after the previous one - 1603rd.
This time, the earliest found publication in Telegram appeared on December 1 at 10:52 Moscow time in the Bullet channel. The actual issue of LeMan, No.1604 (48), is due out on December 7.
So, let’s start over. As noted in the official Twitter account of LeMan, this is a periodical publication, the releases of which are usually released once a week. For example, consider issues No.1592, 1593, and 1594: they were released on September 14, 21, and 28, 2022, respectively. In addition, next to the year on the cover, the issue number since the beginning of the year also changes: 36th, 37th and 38th, respectively.
Covers No.1592 (left), 1593 (center), and 1594 (right)
Now let’s take a closer look at the data indicated on the fake cover with Zelenskyy: it shows No.1595, September 29, 2022 and the 39th issue of 2022. Firstly, it turns out that this magazine was supposed to come out the very next day after the previous one, and not, as expected, a week later, while the cover does not indicate that this is an extraordinary special issue. Secondly, there is no caricature of Zelenskyy on LeMan social networks, neither on Twitter, nor on Facebook, or on Instagram, although the publication regularly posts the works of its authors there.
Fake cover of issue No.1595
The actual cover of issue No.1595 was posted on LeMan social media in early October, noting that it was the October 5, 2022 issue. The caricature does show the president, but not of Ukraine, but of Turkey – Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The plot of the picture is dedicated to the opening of a new metro line in Istanbul.
The real cover of the issue No.1595
Sometimes the magazine actually had more than one cover, but different versions had the same number and date. It is possible to verify this by the example of numbers 1596 (first and second covers) and 1600 (1 and 2).
