🧵 THE STRANGE AFTERLIFE OF "ZELENSKYY THE COCAINE ADDICT"
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Bored by yet another troll last night making spurious claims, I thought I'd look into this...
If you spend much time around pro-Kremlin accounts, and unfortunately, most of us do as part of information warfare whether we like it or not, eventually someone will call Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "cokehead".
It's been repeated so often that it's acquired the appearance of established fact in some circles.
So where's the evidence?
The allegation goes back at least to Ukraine's 2019 presidential election campaign, when drug use became an issue and Zelenskyy underwent testing. No narcotics were detected, and subsequent fact-checkers have found no credible reporting establishing that Zelenskyy uses cocaine.
politifact.com/factchecks/20…
After Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, however, the story became part of the pro-Kremlin information environment.
And suddenly there was "evidence".
One widely circulated video apparently showed white powder and a credit card on Zelenskyy's desk during a video call with Elon Musk.
There was one problem.
Someone had added them to the video.
The original footage contains neither. AFP and PolitiFact independently compared the viral version with the original and established that it had been digitally manipulated. PolitiFact reported that the altered version initially spread among pro-Russian Telegram channels.
factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.co…
Then there was supposedly a video of Zelenskyy admitting he used cocaine.
That was manipulated too.
It originated from a genuine 2019 interview in which Zelenskyy was asked about rumours of cocaine use and denied taking drugs. Sections of the interview were rearranged to make his comments about having energy, exercising and drinking coffee sound like an enthusiastic description of cocaine use.
politifact.com/factchecks/20…
And so a rumour acquired fabricated supporting evidence.
Rumour → manipulated video → pro-Kremlin amplification → repetition → "everybody knows".
Four years later, people don't even need the fake videos.
"Cokehead" is enough.
And that is how successful disinformation survives: eventually the original "evidence" isn't required at all.